PERSONALIA

1. Campaign medals

£500

Confirmed on the South Africa Medal roll.

£250

William Beecham was born near Horncastle, Lincolnshire about 1823, and entered the Royal Artillery  on 6th April 1841. He served abroad at St Helena for ten years, before joining the Crimean campaign (his papers confirm his entitlement to the Crimea medal with the Sebastopol clasp). He received a silver long service and good conduct medal, and was discharged for completion of service on 3rd May 1862.

John McGuire was born in the parish of Blacklog, Londonderry in 1836. He was a labourer by trade and joined the 44th Foot on 19th April 1854 to serve in the Crimea (papers confirm the Crimea medal with Sebastopol clasp). He was transferred and posted to India with the 6th Foot on 18th September 1857 becoming a sergeant Instructor of Musketry, returning to England in 1862. He saw service again in India from 1867-1870. Despite good conduct, he faced two courts martial during his service - in 1862 receiving a reduced sentence, and in 1871 when he was reduced to the ranks as private (working his way back to sergeant by 1872). He was discharged with a pension in 1876.

£200

Unresearched.

£200

Unresearched.

£250

The entitlement of Private William Turner to the four clasps is confirmed in the medal roll. Against the entry is a note "Deserted 22.4.02 placed under protective custody under AO 129/10 11.8.10 Medals returned.  Address:- c/o Mrs W.Barber, 5 Bygrove Street, Poplar".

Unresearched.

£120

Unresearched.

2. Award medals

£200

Henry Cheadle (1852-1910) was a landscape painter in oils, most of whose subjects were painted in the Midlands and North Wales.  He studied at the Birmingham Society of Arts, receiving this medal in 1867,  and was awarded a silver medal for studies undertaken in South Kensington. He exhibited 258 works at the Royal Society of British Artists, 105 at Birmingham City Art Gallery, and elsewhere.

£200

The recipient of this medal was Sir Edmund Frederick Du Cane (1830–1903), prison administrator and army officer. Du Cane joined the Royal Engineers in 1848, and after service in Western Australia supervising the management and building of prisons, he became involved in convict prisons in Britain, becoming chairman of the convict prison directors, surveyor-general of prisons, and inspector-general of military prisons. He was promoted major in July 1872, lieutenant-colonel in December 1873, and four years later brevet colonel, and was also made CB (civil division) in 1873. In the same year he proposed that local prisons (administered by local magistrates) should be placed under central Government control. The resulting 1877 Prisons Act gave control of all 116 local prisons of England and Wales to a new London-based Prison Commission, of which Du Cane became the chairman (ODNB).

Du Cane was an accomplished painter in water-colours, and his sketches of Peninsular War battlefields were exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition at Chelsea in 1890, and this Exhibition medal was presumably in part awarded for a painting entry ('No. 2350'). Du Cane's wider interest in the arts dated back to his position as assistant superintendent of the foreign side of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and assistant secretary to the juries of awards (ODNB).

£150

St  Clair Graham Ballenden was born in Sedgley, Staffordshire in 1860, the son of Dr. John Ballenden and Elizabeth (Wilson). In 1894 he married Emma Bayley, and by 1901 was practising as a surgeon, still living in Sedgley.

£150

Gerald Dudley Freer was born in Stourbridge in 1866, the son of Leacroft Freer, ironmaster, and Mary Anne (Davis). He studied medicine, and in 1905 became the first Principal of the Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School (later the King Edward VII College of Medicine). Dr Freer continued as Principal until 1909 when he was appointed Senior Medical Officer, Selangor.

£50

Interesting given the subject of the award for painting china, but the recipient has not been traced further.

£50

Two silver and two bronze medals were awarded between 1893-1920 to the best candidates and second best candidates in the Oxford Local and Cambridge Local Senior exams in physical geography and political geography. This medal was awarded to Leonard Blackler in December1893 for physical geography. A Leonard Blackler is found in the 1908 Navy List, serving as Secretary on board HMS Cormorant.

£250

The Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, was founded in 1826, and became the Royal Scottish Academy upon the granting of its Royal Charter in 1838. This fine medal was engraved by B.Wyon after designs by Sir Joseph Noel Paton RSA. It was awarded retrospectively (probably to his family) in memory of Alexander Forbes (1802-1839), one of the Academy's early Associates, elected in 1830. Forbes was born in Aberdeen, and taught art in Edinburgh. He quickly became a highly skilled painter of animals in oils, becoming known as the 'Landseer of the north'. He died prematurely aged 37, but had 64 paintings exhibited at the RSA.

Probably John Reid, gas engineer, found in the 1861 census, in Leith, who was born about 1813 in Perth. 

£100

An interesting medal in being a prize for the Owen Jones Competition, named after the famous architect, printer, and designer, best known for his classic publication, the Grammar of Ornament published 1856. Further research is needed into the identity of Emma Hodgkinson.

SOLD

Robert Barkworth Jordan was born in London about 1832. A record is found in IGI of a christening under his name on 28 June 1837, in Kennington, London, the son of Thomas and Sarah Jordan. Robert was a clerk in a gas works, and married firstly Harriet Emily White, on 30 August 1855 at St Martins in the Fields, by whom he had a son Sidney Thomas and a daughter Harriet Emily. Following his wife's death in 1859, he married Ellen Connolly Walker at Chelsea in 1861, by whom he had at least 6 children. His family can be found in the 1861,1871 and 1901 census.

£50

Matthew George Taylor was born in Heyton, Lancashire, in 1843. He married Alice Ann Phythian in 1876, and was an architect.

£250

Ruby Winifred Levick (1871/2–1940) was born in Llandaff, Glamorgan, and studied at the National Art Training School (later the Royal College of Art), South Kensington, from about 1893 to 1897. A new emphasis on modelling, as opposed to carving, and a resurgence of interest in small-scale sculpture, enabled women artists to make a significant contribution to the previously male-dominated field of sculpture. Following the award of this medal in 1895, she gained a British Institution scholarship for modelling, and the princess of Wales scholarship. She became extremely competent in small-scale sculpture, decorative relief work and stained-glass, exhibited widely, and become admired among others, by Queen Alexandra. (ODNB)

£200

Frank Belshaw was born in Nottingham in 1855, studied art at the Nottingham School of Art, and was a founder member (and Secretary 1881) of the Nottingham Society of Artists. He won this medal in 1882, and a silver medal, and had work exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of British Artists. He painted landscape and still-life subjects, but died prematurely aged 29 in 1884.

£150

Richard John Durley was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1868, the son of Richard and Elizabeth Durley. His father died in the year of his birth, and his mother became a schoolteacher. Richard is recorded as a marine engineer in the 1891 census, but is not found in the 1901 census. A Richard John Durley is found in the Mechanical Engineering Department of McGill University in Canada in the early 20th century, who in 1903 published a standard text for students "Kinematics of Machines", but further research is needed to verify the link.

£500

Awarded to William Henry Smith (1825–1891), later the newsagent (of W.H.Smith fame) and politician. Born in London, the only son of William Henry and Mary Ann Smith, he was educated at home, and for a short period in 1839, attended Tavistock Grammar School, where he received this silver medal. Smith hoped to go to Oxford and take holy orders, but his father installed him in his small newsagent business in the Strand. William took the business in a new direction setting up bookstalls at railway stations, and by 1862 had secured bookstall rights at all the major network stations. He made many innovations in the trade, but leaving the day-to-day management to others, he was able to move to a career in politics. He was elected MP for Westminster in 1868, was promoted to the cabinet in 1877, and was given further high office in successive governments. (ODNB)

Harmer went to King's College, Cambridge, where he had a distinguished career as exhibitioner, scholar, and fellow. In 1885 he became university lecturer in advanced invertebrate morphology, and five years later became superintendent of the University Museum of Zoology. Harmer was appointed keeper of zoology at the British Museum (Natural History) in 1907 and from 1919 to 1927 was its director. Throughout his life he inspired affection by his gentleness, courtesy, and kindness. ODNB

£300

Caesar Litton Falkiner (1863-1908) was a politician, barrister and a writer on literary and historical topics. Born in Dublin, he went to Dublin University where he graduated BA in 1886 and proceeded MA in 1890. In 1885 he was elected President of the college Philosophical Society (who had awarded him this silver medal the previous year) giving a presidential address entitled ‘A new voyage to Utopia’. In 1887 Falkiner was called to the Irish bar, and in 1888 he began to work actively on behalf of the unionist cause. Falkiner devoted much time to the study of Irish history and literature, publishing a number of scholarly works, but he died at the age of 45 in an accident in the Alps. (ODNB)

£300

Richard Robert Cherry (1859–1923), politician and judge, was born in Waterford, Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (1875–9), where he took part in athletics, as well as being a senior moderator and double gold medallist in mental science and history and political science. In 1881 he trained in law at the King's Inns, Dublin, and the Middle Temple, and was called to the Irish bar. Cherry won this medal whilst still a member of the University of Dublin Philosophical Society. He became a leading lawyer and judge, and was appointed lord chief justice of Ireland in 1914. (ODNB)

£75

Ernest Masson Anderson was born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1877, the son of the Congregational Minister John Anderson and his wife Annie. He became a well known structural geologist. He was elected FRSE in 1920, and in 1949 received the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London.

£100

Alfred Alexander Murray was born in Edinburgh in 1863, the son of a law clerk Joseph Anderson and his wife Margaret. In 1891 he is recorded in the census as a law agent & lawyer's managing clerk, and by 1901 as writer to HM Signet. In 1901 he is living in Edinburgh with his wife Mary, and with a Norwegian servant Gunda Jorgenson. The latter is probably in some way relevant as in 1902 he gave a lecture to the Edinburgh Photographic Society entitled "By Stockholm to Lapland".

Thomas Morton, one of the most able surgeons of his time, was was born in 1813 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the youngest son of Joseph Morton, a master mariner.  On the completion of an apprenticeship at the Newcastle upon Tyne Infirmary in 1832, he entered University College, London. Here he was awarded four prizes: two gold medals respectively for surgery and midwifery, and two silver medals for anatomy (this medal) and practical anatomy. Morton was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1835, and was appointed house surgeon at the North London (later University College) Hospital. In 1842 he became assistant surgeon, and although was made full surgeon, he was not given the professorship he sought. Finding increasing private practice no substitute for the hospital work he desired, Morton's depression continued. This, combined with an obsessive concern about drinking, led to his death by suicide, by taking prussic acid, on 30 October 1849. ODNB.

Carl Hentschel  was born in Lodz, Russia in1864, settled in England, and married Bertha Posner in 1889. Their daughter Irene married the theatre critic and writer Ivor John Carnegie Brown, and another daughter, Olga, married the novelist William Pett Ridge. Hentschel was a photo-engraver by trade, and was a founder member of the Playgoer's Club established in 1884. His friend Jerome K. Jerome a co-founder of the Club, later immortalised Hentschel as "Harris" in Three Men in a Boat.

END OF MEDALS SECTION