Presentation box originally containing seven medals relating to the Great Exhibition of 1851, inscribed to Henry Cole, red morocco with metal clasps, Clerkenwell, 1851

Wooden box finely bound in the form of a book, containing seven medals. The box is bound in red morocco (goat leather) with two decorative metal hinges and clasps. The title is stamped in gold on the lid and spine, and stamped blind on the base. The lid is decorated with a gold-blocking design incorporating the initials V and A topped by a crown; also stamped blind on the base. The turn-ins are decorated with a gold border design.

The inside of the lid is padded and covered in royal blue moiré (watered silk). It is printed with an inscription in gold and a design incorporating the letters V and A within leafy branches under a dove with outstretched wings. The inside base of the box has a dark blue velvet covered insert with circular compartments for seven medals; each are labelled on the velvet above them with the medal's title: 'Council', 'Exhibitors', 'Prince Alberts', 'Service', 'Jurors', 'Prize', and 'Service H.C.'. Blue fabric ribbons for medal removal are still attached to some of the compartment bases.

Bequeathed by Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B.

This case houses a presentation set of the official medals created for the ‘Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’, presented to Henry Cole by the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, a group charged by Queen Victoria with organising and administering the event under the presidency of Prince Albert. Prince Albert appears on the obverse (front) of the medals in two designs (both executed by William Wyon RA, Chief Engraver of the Royal Mint) as either a solo bust or conjoined with Queen Victoria.

The official Great Exhibition medals were awarded by the Royal Commissioners on behalf of HRH Queen Victoria, and were conceived to confer status and prestige on the exhibition and its awards. They were struck in bronze because it was considered by the Commissioners to be a medium ‘better suited than any other for the development of superior skill and ingenuity in the medallic arts’. This neatly reflected the Great Exhibition’s mission of promoting British industry and trade through encouraging excellence in British design and manufacturing, and developing public taste.

The five official medals are of varying size and design: The Council, Prize, Jurors’, Exhibitors, and Service Medal. The Council Medal followed by the Prize Medal were the largest and most prestigious; they were prize awards for selected exhibits displayed in the ‘Crystal Palace’ in Hyde Park. To distinguish it from the Prize Medal, the Council Medal was awarded for 'some important novelty of innovation or application, either in material, or process of manufacture, or originality combined with great beauty of design; but that it should not be conferred for excellence of production or workmanship alone’. All exhibitors who were not awarded either of them were presented with the smaller Exhibitors’ Medal as a memorial to their contribution. The Service Medal was given to individuals and companies in gratitude for services rendered to the Exhibition. An international competition was held in 1850 by the Royal Society of Arts (the organisation which oversaw the embryonic stages of the Great Exhibition) to select the designs for the reverses of what later became called the Jurors, Prize and Council medals. The Exhibitors Medal and the Services Medal are the two smallest and were conceived and designed later than the others.

The medals were usually awarded alongside certificates stating the type of medal awarded, illustrated with detailed actual-size engravings of the obverse and reverse designs of the particular medal, and headed by one of two elegant certificate plate decorations by William Dyce. Recipients also collected a small copy of the extensive Juries’ reports on the exhibits. The awarded medals were inscribed around the edge with the name and class number of the exhibitor. Manufacturers and artisans valued the medals for their prestige, and many subsequently used them for advertising purposes.

The additional versions of the medals which were commissioned for presentation sets such as this are differentiated by the inscription around the outside rim, which includes the name of the recipient (individual or company), the type of medal, and the word ‘PRESENTATION’ clearly stated. They were normally made up into boxed sets of the five medals, bound and gilded in the form of a book, and presented to the government or ruler of every country to take part in the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of All Nations’, and to the members of the Royal Commission themselves. They were also presented to a number of other senior officials involved in organising the Great Exhibition: During a meeting of the Royal Commissioners on 13 October 1851 ‘It was resolved that complete sets of the Medals and of the Photographs should be furnished to the different members of the Commission, the Executive Committee, and the Finance Committee, and to the Special Commissions, the Secretaries, the Treasurers of the Commission’. Henry Cole would have received a Presentation set as a member of the Executive Committee of the Royal Commission.

A number of these five-medal presentation box sets were given alongside sets of official printed volumes produced for the Great Exhibition, ordered by the Commissioners to act as commemorative gifts. They included bound copies of the ‘Supplement to the first report of the Commissioners: containing engravings of the medals and certificates. .’, the ‘Illustrated Catalogue.. ’ in several volumes, ‘Reports of the Juries.. ’, and the Commissioners Reports. The volumes and medal sets alike were expensively bound in this same distinctive design of red morocco (goatskin), with stamped gilt lettering and decoration, and royal blue moiré silk doublures and endpapers. Examples of these volumes are inscribed to Henry Cole and would have formed a full matching presentation set alongside this box of medals.

The maker of this case is identified as Barnby by his name and address stamped on the inside rim of the lid. Robert Barnby is documented as a mathematical instrument maker who built himself a workshop in the garden of no. 35 Wilmington square, Clerkenwell. The velvet lined medal case, with apertures shaped to fit the medals precisely, is certainly redolent of bespoke cases made to protect precious scientific instruments.

The five official medals contained in this box are inscribed to Henry Cole around the rim, and in gilt lettering inside the lid. He was one of the driving forces of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and then became the first General Superintendent of the Department of Practical Art in 1852. This set was presented to Henry Cole by the Royal Commissioners of the Great Exhibition, of which he himself was a member, and may be unique in being specially designed to containing seven medals rather than the usual five.

This seven medal set contains two extra medals over and above the five official presentation medal examples: Firstly the Service Medal awarded to Henry Cole, distinguished in the case from the one which he received as a presentation version by the title 'SERVICE H.C.' marked in the velvet above it, and awarded to him with a certificate for services to the Great Exhibition; Secondly, Prince Albert’s 1845 personal medal in gold, presented to Henry Cole by Albert following the Great Exhibition as ‘a token of remembrance of our long communion in this work’. Cole was Prince Albert’s Chief Advisor for the Great Exhibition and was involved in all aspects of its concept and execution. He was also a member of the Royal Commission’s Executive Committee. These two additional medals were combined with the presentation medal set to form this amalgamated set of all Henry Cole’s medals associated with the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was probably received by Cole at some point in 1852.

The gilt inscription inside the lid presenting the set to Henry Cole uses the post-nominal ‘C.B.’, acknowledging Henry Cole’s new status as a Companion of the Order of the Bath, an Order of Chivalry conferred on him by the Queen on 15th October 1851 at the close of the Great Exhibition in tribute to his hard work and achievements.

A number of these handsome book-like cases were made to contain presentation versions of the five official medals executed for the ‘Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’, and were presented as commemorative gifts by the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

This set inscribed to Henry Cole may be unique in containing seven medals. Two of them are not presentation medals: A Service Medal awarded to Henry Cole, and a gold example of Prince Albert’s personal medal, received for work together on the Exhibition.

Henry Cole became Prince Albert’s chief adviser for the Great Exhibition, and was a member of the Commission’s Executive Committee. He went on to establish and run the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) with the aid of some of the profits from the Great Exhibition. One of his great missions was to improve the quality of design in British manufacturing.

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