A Collection of 1851 Great Exhibition Medals

A COLLECTION OF 1851 GREAT EXHIBITION MEDALS, Juror’s Medal, 1851, by W. Wyon and G.G. Adams, in bronze, similar, reverse seated figure of Industry attended by Commerce, receiving wreath of Fame, edge named (Sir H.T. de la Beche, Juror Exhibition 1851), 64mm (BHM 2464; E 1459). Brilliant and practically as struck, an interesting piece with Colonial associations (£70-100)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of 1851 Great Exhibition Medals.

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Sir Henry Thomas de la Beche, CB, FRS (1796-1855), geologist; chairman of the Mining, Quarrying, Metallurgical Operations and Mineral Products jury at the Exhibition. De la Beche’s lifelong interest in geology was first kindled as a boy when he lived in Lyme Regis. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1817 and was elected its president in 1847. He wrote several works on geology and was the mastermind behind the compilation of the Ordnance Survey map of Britain, begun in 1832. He founded the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, London, opened by Prince Albert in 1851, and funded the issue of two medals – the de la Beche medal of the School of Mines (BHM 2264), instituted as an annual prize in 1857, two years after his death, and the de la Beche Good Conduct Medal of 1841 (BHM 2002), awarded to employees on his paternal estate at Halse Hall, Clarendon, on the island of Jamaica. Further details are sold with the lot