Auction Catalogue

9 & 10 December 2003

Starting at 11:00 AM

.

Ancient, British and World Coins and Banknotes

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 1394

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10 December 2003

Hammer Price:
£2,400

Medals Related to Railways, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1855, a gold medal of honour by A.D. Barre, bust of Napoleon III right, rev. crowned arms on mantle surrounded by shields of the participating nations, cartouche below, named (Robert Stephenson), 60mm (Divo 234; cf. UBS Auction, 13.ix.2000, lot 2059). A few light marks, otherwise brilliant and practically as struck, very rare and a most interesting association piece (£2,000-2,500)

Robert Stephenson (1803-59), civil engineer and son of George Stephenson, the railway pioneer; b. Willington Quay, Newcastle upon Tyne; educated at Bruce’s Academy, Newcastle; assisted his father in the survey of the Stockton and Darlington railway, 1821; appointed manager of his father’s locomotive factory, 1823; worked as a mining superintendent in Columbia, 1824-7; rejoined his father in 1827 and built the Rocket steam locomotive in 1829; became engineer for the London and Birmingham railway, 1833, completed in 1838; became Conservative MP for Whitby 1847 and served until his death; president, Institute of Civil Engineers, 1856-7; taken seriously ill on a yachting cruise to Norway, he died at his London home in October 1859 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Stephenson’s greatest works were his bridges, including the high-level bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle, the Victoria bridge at Berwick and, most notably, the world’s first tubular girder bridge, built to carry the Chester and Holyhead line across the Menai Strait, opened on 5 March 1850. For this invention he was awarded the great gold medal of honour by the council of the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Illustration reduced