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Dublin International Exhibition 1865 Bronze Medal to Geologist Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn.

Currency:CAD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:30.00 CAD Estimated At:80.00 - 100.00 CAD
Dublin International Exhibition 1865 Bronze Medal to Geologist Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn.
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Ireland, Dublin International Exhibition 1865, Arts and Manufactures, Bronze Medal. Awarded to prominent British-born Australian geologist  A.R.C. Selwyn. Designed and sculpted by Belgian medalist Alexandre Georges Geefs, this stunning, intricately designed medal displays superb craftsmanship and reflects the artistry of the time. The medal’s obverse shows a winged female figure (often interpreted as Minerva or a spirit of industry) holding a cornucopia, hovering above a classical temple and symbols of art and industry, with a setting sun and its rays in the background. Around the top portion of the rim reads “ARTS AND MANUFACTURES”, while below the image is the artist’s signature, “ALEX. GEEFS INV. & FECIT. BRUSSELS” in two lines. The reverse displays a crowned Irish harp at the top surrounded by a wreath of national plants (shamrocks, roses, and thistles). Around the inner center rim is a wreath intertwined with the names of the four quarters of the globe (EUROPE, AFRICA, ASIA, AMERICA). In the center of the reverse is carved in two lines “SECTION I. A.R.C. SELWYN,” which is encircled by the text “DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 1865” around the top portion of the rim. Both the obverse and the reverse display light brown tones of even colour. The obverse has some small dark spots along the bottom where the artist’s signature is located and a small rim nick at the 10 o’clock position, but overall, for the age, it is very nicely preserved. The reverse displays a light brown/reddish tone on the right side of the fields, while the left side shows a darker brown patina. Some dark spotting appears at the 3 and 5 o’clock points closer to the rim, but it is minor and does not detract from the overall look and presentation of the medal. A wonderful, unique and historically rich piece of Irish, Australian and British colonial history and a wonderful addition to a world historical medal collection. Specifications: Diameter: 76mm, Weight: 166.6g, Composition: Bronze, Edge: Plain.
ABOUT the INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, DUBLIN 1865:
Running from May 9th to November 10, 1865, the Exhibition took place across a 17-acre site at the former Coburg Gardens (now the Iveagh Gardens) and was opened by the Prince of Wales. The exhibition contained 4,781 display cases showcasing fine arts, raw materials, textiles, and manufactured goods from the British Isles, foreign countries, and colonies, with almost 1 million people passing through the fair during its 6-month visit. Notable attendees of the Arts and Manufacturers Exhibition included: Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, a legendary brewer and philanthropist who bought and provided the 17-acre Coburg Gardens site and heavily financed the construction of the Exhibition Palace; Lady Clementina Hawarden, a famous pioneer in Victorian photography who exhibited five photographic studies; and Pietro Magni and Charles-Auguste Fraikin, famous European sculptors who travelled to display or submit major marble works in the Central Hall.
ABOUT ALFRED RICHARD CECIL SELWYN:
Information from the Australian Dictionary of Biography Website: Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn (1824-1902), geologist, was born on 28 July 1824 at Kilmington, Somerset, England. Educated at home by private tutors and later in Switzerland, he became interested in geology by collecting fossils as a hobby. On 1 April 1845 he joined the Geological Survey of Great Britain as assistant geologist and was promoted to geologist on 1 January 1848. He worked in Shropshire and North Wales on the mapping of the Paleozoic rocks, but was also on the British coalfields. Early in 1852 he married his cousin Matilda Charlotte Selwyn, and had to seek a higher income. His brother Arthur was in Queensland and in September 1851 had indicated prospects in Australia. Next year the Victorian government appealed to the Colonial Office for a ‘Mineral Surveyor’, and Selwyn was appointed geological surveyor (later director of the Geological Survey). He arrived in Melbourne in November of that year.
In 1856 he discovered near Bendigo the first graptolites found in Australia. This important group of fossils was later used for zoning much of the Lower Paleozoic sequence. In 1853-69 the Geological Survey issued under Selwyn’s direction sixty-one geological maps and numerous reports; they were of such high standard that a writer in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London bracketed the survey with that of the United States of America as the best in the world. Apart from annual reports, he prepared an essay on the geology of Victoria, and expanded it in 1861 for the Catalogue of the Victorian Exhibition; in 1865 he put out a geological map of Victoria in eight sheets. With G. H. F. Ulrich in 1866 he published Intercolonial Exhibition Essays … Notes on the Physical Geography, Geology and Mineralogy of Victoria for the Paris exhibition; it was translated into French. In 1855 Selwyn had surveyed the coal measures of Tasmania, and in 1859 the eastern part of South Australia including the Flinders Range. In the Inman Valley region south of Adelaide he recognized evidence for glaciation at a site now known (and preserved) as Selwyn's Rock; later he supported this important observation by similar work in the Bacchus Marsh region of Victoria. His other duties included appointments to the Mining Commission (1856), the Board of Science (1858) and the Board of Agriculture (1859); he was a commissioner for the Victorian Exhibition (1861) and the London International Exhibition (1862) and was on the management committee of the Zoological Gardens from 1858.
In 1869, pleading lack of funds, the government abruptly terminated the Geological Survey against a background of disagreement with Selwyn about its functions. He left Melbourne for England in March, visiting Sydney on the way. Before he left he announced that he had been offered the post of director of the Geological Survey of Canada. He arrived in Canada in October, took office in December and continued a distinguished career until his retirement on 1 January 1894. After moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1896 he carried out consulting work in mining geology. He died in Vancouver on 18 October 1902 and was buried in the Mountain View cemetery, predeceased by his wife in 1882 and by four of his nine children.
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