50mm. Gilt bronze. By Adam Pietz.
Obverse with half length bust of Joseph Priestley, reverse with chemistry apparatus, legend around and named in centre to Robert Parkinson, 1953.
Obverse spot on S, otherwise Good Extremely Fine and a very rare award to a renowned Chemist and nobel laureate. This medal is stated to be awarded in gold so it is likely that it is presented alongside a less valuable bronze medal, which can be used for display.
The Priestley Medal is the highest honour conferred by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and is awarded for distinguished service in the field of chemistry. Established in 1922, the award is named after Joseph Priestley, one of the discoverers of oxygen, who immigrated to the United States of America in 1794. The ACS formed in 1876, spearheaded by a group of chemists who had met two years previously in Priestley's home.
The Priestley Medal is among the most distinguished awards in the chemical sciences, behind the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Consequently, it is commonly awarded to scientists who are advanced in their fields, as it is intended to commemorate lifetime achievement. When the ACS started presenting the Priestley Medal in 1923, they intended to award it every three years. This continued until 1944, when it became an annual award.
Sir Robert Robinson OM FRS FRSE (13 September 1886 – 8 February 1975) was a British organic chemist and Nobel laureate recognised in 1947 for his research on plant dyestuffs (anthocyanins) and alkaloids. In 1947, he also received the Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm.
Robinson went to school at the Chesterfield Grammar School and the private Fulneck School. He then studied chemistry at the University of Manchester, graduating BSc in 1905. In 1907 he was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to continue his research at the University of Manchester. He was appointed as the first Professor of Pure and Applied Organic Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney in 1912. He then took up the Chair in Organic Chemistry at the University of Liverpool (1915–20) and following this became the Director of Research at the British Dyestuffs Corporation. He was briefly at St Andrews University (1921–22) and then took the Chair of Organic Chemistry at Manchester University. In 1928 he moved from there to be a professor at University College London where he stayed only two years. He was the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University from 1930 and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Robinson was elected an International Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1934, an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1944, and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1948.
He invented the symbol for benzene having a circle in the middle whilst working at St Andrews University in 1923. He is known for inventing the use of the curly arrow to represent electron movement, and he is also known for discovering the molecular structures of morphine and penicillin.