The Wallace Medal is awarded by the Wallace Memorial Fund for outstanding contributions to Wallace scholarship or the public understanding of his life and work. There are silver and bronze versions.
Sterling silver (left) and bronze (right) Wallace Medals. The medal measures 7.4cm x 6.1cm.
(This photo is by George Beccaloni but it may be reproduced freely).
Medallists
Silver Medals
2013: At an event at London's Natural History Museum on 7th November (the 100th anniversary of Wallace's death), framed silver medals were awarded to Sir David Attenborough and Bill Bailey in recognition of their very important contributions to the public understanding of Wallace's life and work made during the anniversary year.
The framed silver Wallace Medal. Copyright James Cranfield.
Sir David and Bill Bailey inspect their silver medals. Copyright Jan Beccaloni.
2017: James Costa was presented with a silver medal on the 14th October after delivering the Wallace Memorial Fund's 4th A. R. Wallace Lecture at University College London. It was awarded for his outstanding contributions to Wallace scholarship, including his books On the Organic Law of Change (Harvard, 2013) and Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species (Harvard, 2014).
James Costa with his silver Wallace Medal.
Bronze Medals
2015: Richard Milner was awarded the bronze medal at an event at London's Natural History Museum on the 2nd July in recognition of the major contribution he has made to the public understanding of Wallace's life and work, through his Templeton Foundation funded Wallace Centenary Celebration project.
Richard Milner with his bronze Wallace Medal. Copyright Lance Tuckett
History of the Medal
The medal is a cast replica of an electrotype (probably made of silvered copper) of a scaled-down copy of a portrait medallion of Wallace dated 1906, by Albert Bruce-Joy (1842-1924), which was modelled from photographs and from life. The original electrotype may well have belonged to Wallace himself, and it is now owned by one of his descendants. More information about Bruce-Joy's portrait medallions of Wallace can be found HERE.
The Wallace Fund would like to thank the Wallace family for allowing a mould to be made of their medal; James Cranfield for organising for this to be done; and Martin Hinchcliffe for arranging for a number of bronze and silver casts to be produced and for finishing them in his workshop.