1 VideoVictoria, 1837-1901. Gold Medal 1884, 104.15 g. Earl of Dufferin's Viceroy Presentation Award Medal. Unsigned. Lord Dufferin's crowned and supported arms. PRESENTED . BY . HIS . EXCELLENCY . THE . GOVERNOR . GENERAL. Rv. Heart and crescent, coronet and standards above; encircled by the Earl's Orders of chivalry. THE . EARL . OF . DUFFERIN . VICEROY . OF . INDIA . 1884. Edge engraving: PRESENTED TO CAPT: W. R. PRATT AS BEST SHOT IN THE THREE PRESIDENCIES 1887. 51.2 mm. Eimer -. BHM 3162. Puddester 884.1.1. Sehr selten / Very rare. Fast FDC / About Mint State. Prachtexemplar / Cabinet piece.
Purchased from UBS, Zurich, April 1983, lot 31.
Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, (21 June 1826 - 12 February 1902), was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Victoria, and became well known to the public after publishing a best-selling account of his travels in the North Atlantic. He is now best known as one of the most successful public servants of his time.
His long career in public service began as a commissioner to Syria in 1860, where his skilful diplomacy maintained British interests while preventing France from instituting a client state in Lebanon. After his success in Syria, Dufferin served in the Government of the United Kingdom as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Under-Secretary of State for War. In 1872, he became Governor General of Canada, bolstering imperial ties in the early years of the Dominion, and in 1884 he reached the pinnacle of his official career as Viceroy of India.
This Viceroy presentation medal for India was the first since Sir John Shore's, eighty-seven years previously, and the first in an unbroken succession of the next ten Viceroys. Unlike his Canadian Governor-General medal (Dufferin was Governor-General of Canada from 1872-78) that had the conjoined busts of the Earl and Countess by A.B. Wyon, he selected for the obverse his arms and supporters and, for the
reverse, a crest, Earl's coronet and orders.
This medal was also used as a shooting prize medal, engraved on the edge with the name of the recipient. A smaller gold medal, 20 mm, was produced by the Calcutta Mint also for use as a shooting prize. The large size medal has not been traced in the Calcutta Mint records suggesting that it was probably made by Pinches.