The Brady Medal

DAVID J. SIVETER
Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK (e-mail: djs@le.ac.uk)

In 2007 The Micropalaeontological Society commissioned and
awarded the Brady Medal, the first medal in the history of the
Society. This report records the various stages in that process.
The inaugural recipient of the medal, Professor John Murray of
the University of Southampton, was presented with the award at
the Annual General Meeting of the Society, held at University
College London on 7 November 2007.

THE NAME
There was no shortage of ‘possibles’ when TMS committee had
the nice but tricky task of deciding the name of the medal. The
final choice of the name met with strong approval by all at the
Committee meeting on 14 March 2007, at which the criteria and
mechanism for awarding the medal were also agreed. The medal
is named in honour of George Stewardson Brady (1832–1921)
and his younger brother Henry Bowman Brady (1835–1891), in
recognition of their pioneering studies in micropalaeontology
and natural history. Their father was a medical Doctor and they
received their early education at Quaker schools in the northeast
of England. George Brady went on to become Professor of
Natural History at Newcastle College of Physical Science and a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and is best known for his work on
ostracods. Henry Brady made his way as a successful pharmacist
before turning full time to the study of micro-organisms,
especially foraminifera; he also received the accolade of FRS.
Over their entire adult lives they published what are now deemed
fundamental contributions to the then emerging science of
micropalaeontology. The microfossil collections that they dili-
gently amassed, such as those obtained from the voyages of

HMS Challenger, have proved no less important. Their legion of
papers, monographs and reports form invaluable cornerstones
of scientific reference today.

THE SCULPTOR AND THE DESIGN
Anthony Stones was commissioned to undertake original sculp-
tures for the medal, which was to be cast in bronze. Born in
Glossop, England, he attended Manchester College of Art and is
a citizen of New Zealand, where he spent much of the early part
of his career. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of British
Sculptors and a past President (1999–2004) of The Society of
Portrait Sculptors. His sculptures are in public and private
collections world-wide. Examples of his work are the life-size
equestrian bronze statue of the Roman Emperor Nerva in
Gloucester; the commemorative life-size bronze statues of
Captain Cook at the Royal Maritime Museum at Greenwich
and Gustav Holst in Cheltenham; and portrait bronzes of the
Nobel laureates Dorothy Hodgkin and Seamus Heaney at
colleges of Oxford University. A group of life-size bronze statues
to be sited at the Royal Enclosure at Ascot Racecourse in
Berkshire, and eight 2 m-high ancient Olympic runners destined
for the Olympic site in Beijing are works that will be unveiled in
2008.

TMS committee considered that, if possible, it would be
apposite to depict portraits of George and Henry Brady and a
period microscope on the medal. As TMS Chairman, I visited
Anthony Stones at his home in Oxfordshire on two occasions in
order to discuss the design of the medal and then to help choose
the final one from several prototype designs. On my first visit he

Fig. 1. Anthony Stones with initial sketches for the Brady Medal (16 March 2007).

Journal of Micropalaeontology, 27: 1–4. 0262-821X/08 $15.00 � 2008 The Micropalaeontological Society

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produced initial sketches of the medal design within a minute
(Fig. 1). Only two photographs, one of each brother, were
available on which to base the portraits. The design and clay
modelling of the Brady Medal presented particular objectives
and challenges, as Anthony Stones has kindly documented for
the archives of TMS (Letter, 5 December 2007):

These days a coin or medal is designed and modelled several
times larger than the finished object. This model is made in
plaster by the sculptor and scaled down and engraved by
technicians. In the case of the Brady Medal I wanted the
hand of the sculptor to be present at all stages. To do this I
went back to the original method of making a medal, which
was brought to perfection in the Italian Renaissance. In this
method the sculptor makes his prototype at the same size as
the medal. The size I determined (85 millimetres) was on the
same as the classic examples of the Renaissance.

The design of the obverse, which required two portraits
of equal status, presented a problem. In nine cases out of
ten the obverse bears a single portrait. I made six different

designs, with varying arrangements of the Bradys’ heads
giving them equal status, and none of them satisfactory.
Finally I overlapped the two profiles, giving the elder brother
priority and providing the solution. They look to the right
because this has a positive connotation. To have them
looking to the left would have had the opposite effect. While
modelling the two portraits I worked in many different lights
(sunshine and artificial) and with the light coming from
varying directions.

The reverse has an image of the instrument which makes
micropalaeontology possible, the binocular microscope. This
one is based on drawings from antique specimens on exhibi-
tion at the Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford. The
image stands on the area at the bottom of the reverse side of
the medal, known as the exergue. Traditionally dates or
symbols occupy this space and it seemed the logical place to
have the name of the recipient engraved.

I wanted a classical face for the lettering and looked for
something as close as possible to the alphabet of Trajan as
engraved on the column. The lettering had to be raised from

Fig. 2. Rungwe Kingdom of Pangolin Editions foundry, Chalford, with moulds of the Brady Medal (23 September 2007).

D. J. Siveter

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the surface of the medal and not engraved, thus keeping in
harmony with the raised reliefs of the portraits and the
microscope.

It is pleasing to record that in his letter to TMS (5 December
2007), Anthony Stones noted that,

I am delighted that the Brady Medal was so well received. I
rate the medal as one of my best works at this scale. .
Again, thank you for making it possible for me to work on
this challenging project and to reintroduce Renaissance
methods into medal design.

CASTING AT THE FOUNDRY
The original clay sculptures for the medal were consigned to
Pangolin Editions of Chalford, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, a
craftsman company that Anthony Stones has used to cast many
of his bronzes. Through the guidance of its founder Rungwe
Kingdom, Pangolin is recognized widely as one of Europe’s
leading sculpture foundries and one of the few that still practises
the traditional skills of lost wax investment casting (Fig. 2).
Pangolin also specializes in a wide range of patinas, some of
which were used in the casting of the Brady Medal. The foundry
undertakes casting for an international clientele and at any scale
up to tens of metres (as in, for example, work by Damien Hirst
and Lynn Chadwick).

In September 2007 I was accompanied by TMS former
Chairmen Professor Alan Lord and Dr John Whittaker on a
visit to the foundry, to check on progress towards the comple-
tion of the medal. Together with Rungwe Kingdom we toured
the site and were treated to a fascinating insight into the casting
process by viewing a wide variety of bronzes in the various
stages of production. I collected the finished originals of the
medal, four of which were produced in the first casting, from
Chalford on 3 November 2007 (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. The Brady Medal.

Fig. 4. The First Brady Medallist.

The Brady Medal

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It is, indeed, the case that each recipient of the Brady Medal
receives a work of art, rather than a stamped medal as is the
norm.

THE FIRST BRADY MEDALLIST
As its contribution to the bicentenary celebrations of the
Geological Society of London, the 2007 AGM of TMS was
devoted to the theme of ‘Micropalaeontological Heroes’.
Appropriately, two of the five talks acknowledged the lives and
work of the Brady brothers. TMS was also delighted that the
President of the Geological Society, Professor Richard Fortey
FRS, could be present and make a short address to the meeting.

The Brady Medal is the highest award of The Micropalaeon-
tological Society and is awarded to scientists who have had a

major influence on micropalaeontology by means of a substan-
tial body of excellent research. When it came to deciding who
would prevail from the short-list of candidates, TMS was
conscious of setting a ‘bench mark’ in the inaugural year of the
award. So it was with great pleasure that the Society honoured
John Murray (Fig. 4), in recognition of his seminal and sus-
tained contribution to micropalaeontology, not to mention his
distinguished service to the scientific and academic community
in general.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful to Anthony Stones for kindly providing
his notes on the Brady Medal; to Alan Lord, John Whittaker
and Michal Kucera for comments on the text; and to David
Horne for Figure 4.

D. J. Siveter

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