Founder's Medal

The Gold Medal presented by the Royal Geographical Society consists of two separate awards: the Founder's Medal 1830 and the Patron's Medal 1838. Together they form the most prestigious of the society's awards. They are given for "the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery". Royal approval is required before an award can be made.

The awards originated as an annual gift of fifty guineas from King William IV, first made in 1831, "to constitute a premium for the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery". The Royal Geographical Society decided in 1839 to change this monetary award into the two gold medals. Prior to 1902 the Patron's Medal was alternatively known as the "Victoria Medal".

Recipients have included the notable geographers David Livingstone (1855), Nain Singh Rawat (1877), Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1878), Alfred Russel Wallace (1892) and William Woodville Rockhill (1893), to more recent winners including Professor William Morris Davis (1919), Sir Halford John Mackinder (1945), Professor Richard Chorley (1987) and Professor David Harvey (1995).

Commissions

Expedition in 1928

both North and South Poles.

made to our acquitance with zoology, botany, geology and meteorology

science which form the basis of Physical Geography

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