The Preston-Morley Buckinghamshire Collection: Commemorative Medals

THE PRESTON-MORLEY BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COLLECTION, Halton & Aston Clinton Industrial Exhibition, 1868, a bronze award medal, unsigned [for J. Smith & Co], wreath enclosing monogram, scroll around, rev. swan swimming left, reeds behind, wreath around, edge named (Emily Gamble, Halton), 51mm (Grant, BNJ XXIII, p.477; cf. DNW 47, 986). Minor rim marks, otherwise almost extremely fine, rare (£40-60)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Preston-Morley Buckinghamshire Collection: Commemorative Medals.

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Provenance:
Bt J. Whitmore November 1991.

Sold with a photocopy of an original notation dated Saturday, 30 May 1868, informing a recipient that “the public presentation [of medals and money] will take place in the Exhibition Tent on Friday next, at Two o’Clock” [i.e. 5 June 1868, the last day of the exhibition].

The exhibition, staged on 4 acres of the Rothschild estate, was opened by the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, on 1 June 1868. There were over 3,000 exhibitors from 50 parishes. 200 medals were given as prizes, of which at least one was gold and a small number were silver. A copy of the article by Hayward Parrott, ‘The Halton Exhibition, 1868, and that “colourful bachelor,” Mr Alfred’ [Bucks and Berks Countryside, Feb. 1977, pp.24-5] is sold with the lot