PREVIEW: HISTORICAL MEDALS 17 OCTOBER

The Duke of Wellington is perhaps the most celebrated soldier in British history, but his older brother was also a significant military figure and the conqueror of the legendary Tipu, Sultan of Mysore.

Richard, Lord Wellesley, had taken the honours in 1799 as Governor-General of Bengal, and would later become Foreign Secretary. However, he was equally celebrated as an educationalist and distinguished classical scholar, and he pursued an active policy of education in India – initially in the face of opposition from the East India Company.

 

In doing so, Wellesley founded Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) as an academy of oriental studies and a centre of learning, within the Fort William complex in Calcutta, to train the European administrators in Indian languages.

It also acted as a translation school, and thousands of books were translated from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English there.

The college is also credited with fostering the development of languages such as Bengali and Urdu, and its establishment is recognised as the final crucial step in the first phase of Kolkata’s emergence as an intellectual centre. It also housed a seminal library of old manuscripts and historical books from across South Asia, many of which were transferred to Calcutta Public Library, now the National Library, when the college closed in 1854.

Although Fort William was able to appoint notable scholars to oversee the teaching of different languages, it had a problem with Bengali because at the time Brahmin scholars learnt only Sanskrit – the language of the gods. The solution was to appoint the scholar William Carey of the Baptist Mission in Serampore, who in turn appointed local scholars to develop the study of Bengali at the college.

Although the college was founded on 18 August 1800, Lord Wellesley backdated the statute of foundation to 4 May 1800, to commemorate the first anniversary of his victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam.

This 17 October auction includes a gold honorary medal from the college. As an institution dedicated to education and enlightenment, it adopted the motto Redit a nobis aurora diemque reducit (The dawn returns from us and brings back the day), shown here as an inscription to the obverse, surrounding a view of a mosque and pagoda against a river backdrop and the date 4 May 1800 in Roman numerals. Measuring 45mm in diameter and unsigned, this very rare medal comes with an estimate of £4,000-5,000.