Summary

Silver medal awarded to Professor Frederick McCoy, an ex officio Commissioner of the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition. McCoy was honorary director of the Museum of Natural and Applied Sciences (later Museum Victoria) and a professor in natural sciences at the University of Melbourne. He was dedicated to the cause of science and eduction. The Exhibition, celebrating a century of Australian settlement, surpassed even the grand scale of the1880 Melbourne International Exhibition. It attracted over two million people, but the Victorian government had to spend £250 000 on it, ten times the amount estimated. The exhibition had a distinctively imperial focus, and a greater emphasis on culture than in 1880, particularly music and painting. A choir of five thousand sang music old and new, and half a million people attended symphony concerts. There were over three thousand paintings on display, including works by artists like J.M.W. Turner and C. Lutyens. The Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens, lit inside and out by electric lights, claimed to be the largest installation of arc lighting in the world.

Obverse Description

Crowned bust of Victoria left; around, CENTENNIAL INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION MELBOURNE

Reverse Description

Within wreath of oak and wattle the Southern Cross; above ARTIBUS DIGNIS below, HONOR INSIGNIS; below wreath, MDCCCLXXXVIII

Edge Description

Impressed, FREDERICK Mc.COY ESQ. C.M.G. Sc.D. CANTAB

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