By Dr George Beccaloni, February 2022.
It is a seemingly extraordinary fact that Charles Darwin was not awarded any medals for his discovery of, or work on, evolution by natural selection, because of disagreement among his colleagues about the validity of his work. The medals he received are as follows:
1853: Royal Medal of the Royal Society, for his work on barnacles.
1859: Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London, in recognition of his scientific contributions to Geology.
1864 Copley Medal of the Royal Society, for his achievements in Geology, Zoology and Physiological Botany.
1879: Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians, for distinguished work in Physiology.
The most prestigious of these awards was the Copley Medal - the Royal Society's highest honour, but Darwin's work on evolutionary biology was deliberately "not included" in the award (see https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsnr.1976.0014 and https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/137990#page/581/mode/1up). The President of the Society said "
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/138506#page/174/mode/1up