Medal of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, as Grand Prior of the Order of Saint John
Gilbert Bayes (London 1872 – London 1953)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1948
Materials
Silver
Measurements
698 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
United Kingdom
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 517323
Summary
Silver, medal depicting Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1900-74), Grand Prior of the Venerable Order of Saint John, by Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953), struck by John Pinches Ltd.,1948. The Duke is depicted on the obverse in profile facing left, dressed in the robes of the Order, and with the badge of the Grand Prior below. The legend reads: HENRICUS. GLOUCESTRIAE. DUX. MAGNUS. PRIOR' ('Henry Duke of Gloucester, Grand Prior'). To the left, below the Duke’s shield, is inscribed 'PRO FIDE' ['For the Faith'] and, to the right in the field, the sculptor’s signature and date, 'GILBERT BAYES/1948'. On the reverse is a view of Saint John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, headquarters of the Venerable Order of Saint John, with the shield of the Grand Prior above, the gateway flanked by two lions in panels, embellishments of the Order’s badge. The legend reads: 'IN. BRITT. OMN. VEN. ORD. HOSP. S. JOHIS. HIER' ('The Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John in Jerusalem in Great Britain'), and the banner in the exergue below reads 'PRO UTILITATE HOMINUM/MCMXXXIX.' (‘For the good of humanity’), below it the date 1939. On edge: Hall mark, with ‘JP’ for John Pinches. The medal was the second in a revived series of medals of Grand Priors of the Order of Saint John begun in the twentieth century. It was the last of the medals to have been made by the sculptor Gilbert Bayes.
Full description
In the course of his long career, the sculptor Gilbert Bayes made 22 medals, of which the medal of the Duke of Gloucester as Grand Prior of the Venerable Order of Saint John was the last. It is confusingly dated 1939 on the reverse and 1948, with the artist’s signature, on the obverse. The confusion arose because the Duke succeeded as Grand Prior in 1939, but production of a medal to celebrate the event was delayed by the outbreak of war and, subsequently, by the Duke’s Governor-Generalship of Australia, from 1945-47. The medal was modelled in 1948, Bayes being paid 300 guineas (£315) in October 1948. The medal, struck by the London medallists John Pinches, was sold by the Order in bronze, silver and silver-gilt versions. Jeremy Warren 2018
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, legend: HENRICUS. GLOUCESTRIAE. DUX. MAGNUS. PRIOR Obverse, in field: PRO FIDE Obverse, in field: GILBERT BAYES/1948 Reverse, legend: IN. BRITT. OMN. VEN. ORD. HOSP. S. JOHIS. HIER. Reverse, exergue: PRO UTILITATE HOMINUM/MCMXXXIX. On edge: JP (John Pinches Hallmark)
Makers and roles
Gilbert Bayes (London 1872 – London 1953), sculptor John Pinches, medallist
References
Pinches 1987: John Harvey Pinches, Medals by John Pinches. A Catalogue of Works struck by the Company from 1840 to 1969, London 1987, pp. 119-20. Attwood 1992: Philip Attwood, ‘The Medals of Gilbert Bayes’, The Numismatic Chronicle, 152 (1992), pp. 133-55, pp. 153-54, Pl. 27, no. 22. Brown 1995: Laurence Brown, A Catalogue of British Historical Medals 1760-1960. Volume III. The Accession of Edward VII to 1960, London 1995, p. 183, no. 4419. Irvine and Atterbury 1998: Louise Irvine and Paul Atterbury, Gilbert Bayes Sculptor, 1872-1953, Shepton Beauchamp 1998, p. 183. 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. 65, no. 7878. Eimer 2010: Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values, London 2010, p. 269, no. 2061, Pl. 230.