Commemoration medal for the opening of the National Maritime Museum
John Langford-Jones (1888 - 1937)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1937
Materials
Silver
Measurements
572 mm (Height)
Place of origin
United Kingdom
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 517322
Summary
Silver, Commemoration medal for the opening of the National Maritime Museum, obverse by John Langford-Jones (1888-1937), reverse designed by Messrs. Spink & Son Ltd., 1937. A silver medal commemorating the opening of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 27 April 1937. The obverse is a conjoined double portrait of the King and Queen by John Langford Jones, crowned and in coronation robes, in profile facing to the left, and inscribed 'CORONATION OF KING GEORGE VI/& QUEEN ELIZABETH/ 12 MAY / 1937'. The reverse, designed by Messrs. Spink & Son Ltd., is a view of the Queen’s House, Greenwich, inscribed 'QUEEN’S HOUSE' with exergue inscribed 'THE NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM/ OPENED BY/ HIS MAJESTY/ KING GEORGE VI/ 27TH APRIL 1937'.
Full description
The medal commemorates one of the early engagements carried out by King George VI (1895-1952), making use of one of the royal medallic portraits produced for his coronation, and issued even before the Coronation on 12 May 1937. On 27 April 1937 George VI and his consort Queen Elizabeth presided over the formal opening of the National Maritime Museum. The museum had been founded in 1934 in the Queen’s House, the historic palace built at Greenwich by Inigo Jones for Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, but only completed in 1636 during the reign of Charles I, for his queen, Henrietta Maria. In the years before 1934 the Queen’s House had been the home of the Royal Naval Asylum, a charity which provided a home and school for the orphans of seamen. Works to prepare the building for its new life as a museum were completed in 1936. The official 1937 Coronation medal (see NT 517321) used a portrait by Percy Metcalfe. In view of the limited time before the Coronation, arrangements were made for simultaneous sittings for three medallic artists, Metcalfe, John Langford-Jones and Humphrey Paget. The double-portrait model produced by Langford-Jones was made available by the Royal Mint to commercial medal manufacturers in the form of plaster models, photographs or electrotypes, for the production of medals, the design of the reverses of which would be the responsibility of the manufacturers. Thus Langford-Jones’s image is found on a number of commemorative medals issued in 1937. The National Maritime Museum medal was issued in two sizes, 5.7 cm. (the size of the Anglesey Abbey example) and a smaller version, 3.2 cm. Jeremy Warren 2019
Provenance
Purchased by Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966); bequeathed to the National Trust in 1966 by Lord Fairhaven with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Obverse: CORONATION OF KING GEORGE VI/& QUEEN ELIZABETH/12 MAY / 1937 Reverse, top: QUEEN’S HOUSE Reverse, exergue: THE NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM/ OPENED BY/ HIS MAJESTY/ KING GEORGE VI/ 27TH APRIL 1937
Makers and roles
John Langford-Jones (1888 - 1937), medallist Spink and Sons Ltd, manufacturer
References
Brown 1995: Laurence Brown, A Catalogue of British Historical Medals 1760-1960. Volume III. The Accession of Edward VII to 1960, London 1995, p. 167, no. 4363. Whittlestone and Ewing 2009: Andrew Whittlestone and Michael Ewing, Royal Commemorative Medals 1837-1977. Vol. 7, King George the Sixth, 1936-1952, Llanfyllin 2009, p. 60, no. 7800. Eimer 2010: Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values, London 2010, p. 267, no. 2049, Pl. 229.