The Royal Medal of the Royal Society

The Royal Medal of the Royal Society, awarded to Professor Harry Marshall Ward, 1893, struck in frosted silver and contained in glazed lunettes joined with a silver rim, by William Wyon, diademed "Penny Black" head of Queen Victoria left, rev standing figure of Sir Isaac Newton, REGINAE MVNIFICENTIA ARBITRIO SOCIETATIS, edge engraved, "Prof. Harry Marshal Ward M.A. F.R.S. 1893", 73mm (BHM 1885), contained in the original fitted case of issue. Mint state. Professor Harry Marshall Ward (1854-1906), botanist. The medal, one of two awarded in 1893, was "for his researches into the life-history of fungi and schizomycetes". Ward studied at the South Kensington Science and Art Department under Thomas Henry Huxley in 1874, before attending Christ Church College Cambridge in 1876, where he was funded by a wealthy fellow student, Louis Lucas. Ward graduated with a 1st class Honours degree in Natural Sciences in 1879. The British Government sent him to Ceylon [1880-82] to study the coffee rust disease which was affecting the island's plantations, establishing him as a plant pathologist. In 1885 Ward was appointed Professor of Botany at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill. He became a Fellow of the Linnaean Society [1886], a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society [1887], a Fellow of the Royal Society [1889] and was appointed Professor of Botany at Cambridge University [1895].