The Copley Medal is a scientific award for distinguished achievement in any field of science and it is the highest award granted by the Royal Society of London. It is also the society's oldest award, the first medal being awarded in 1731. The award was created after a £100 bequest in 1709 to the Royal Society by Sir Godfrey Copley, a wealthy landowner from Sprotbrough, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, who was elected to the Society in 1691. It is one of ten medals that the Society awards (some awards are made annually, others at different intervals according to their terms of reference). The Copley Medal alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences, and the winners are selected by Fellows of the Society. The winner of the award is presented with a silver gilt medal accompanied by £5000.
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Recipients
1700s
- 1731: Stephen Gray
- 1732: Stephen Gray
- 1734: John Theophilus Desaguliers
- 1736: John Theophilus Desaguliers
- 1737: John Belchier
- 1738: James Valoue
- 1739: Stephen Hales
- 1740: Alexander Stuart
- 1741: John Theophilus Desaguliers
- 1742: Christopher Middleton
- 1743: Abraham Trembley
- 1744: Henry Baker
- 1745: William Watson
- 1746: Benjamin Robins
- 1747: Gowin Knight
- 1748: James Bradley
- 1749: John Harrison
- 1750: George Edwards
- 1751: John Canton
- 1752: John Pringle
- 1753: Benjamin Franklin
- 1754: William Lewis
- 1755: John Huxham
- 1756: not awarded
- 1757: Lord Charles Cavendish
- 1758: John Dollond
- 1759: John Smeaton
- 1760: Benjamin Wilson
- 1761: not awarded
- 1762: not awarded
- 1763: not awarded
- 1764: John Canton
- 1765: not awarded
- 1766: William Brownrigg; Edward Delaval; Henry Cavendish
- 1767: John Ellis
- 1768: Peter Woulfe
- 1769: William Hewson
- 1770: William Hamilton
- 1771: Matthew Raper
- 1772: Joseph Priestley
- 1773: John Walsh
- 1774: not awarded
- 1775: Nevil Maskelyne
- 1776: James Cook
- 1777: John Mudge
- 1778: Charles Hutton
- 1779: not awarded
- 1780: Samuel Vince
- 1781: William Herschel
- 1782: Richard Kirwan
- 1783: John Goodricke; Thomas Hutchins
- 1784: Edward Waring
- 1785: William Roy
- 1786: not awarded
- 1787: John Hunter
- 1788: Charles Blagden
- 1789: William Morgan
- 1790: not awarded
- 1791: James Rennell; Jean-André Deluc (John Andrew de Luc)
- 1792: Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford
- 1793: not awarded
- 1794: Alessandro Volta
- 1795: Jesse Ramsden
- 1796: George Atwood
- 1797: not awarded
- 1798: Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn, 6th Baronet; Charles Hatchett
- 1799: John Hellins
1800s
- 1800: Edward Howard
- 1801: Astley Paston Cooper
- 1802: William Hyde Wollaston
- 1803: Richard Chenevix
- 1804: Smithson Tennant
- 1805: Humphry Davy
- 1806: Thomas Andrew Knight
- 1807: Everard Home
- 1808: William Henry
- 1809: Edward Troughton
- 1810: not awarded
- 1811: Benjamin Collins Brodie
- 1812: not awarded
- 1813: William Thomas Brande
- 1814: James Ivory
- 1815: David Brewster
- 1816: not awarded
- 1817: Henry Kater
- 1818: Robert Seppings
- 1819: not awarded
- 1820: Hans Christian Ørsted
- 1821: Edward Sabine; John Herschel
- 1822: William Buckland
- 1823: John Pond
- 1824: John Brinkley
- 1825: François Arago; Peter Barlow
- 1826: James South
- 1827: William Prout; Henry Foster
- 1828: not awarded
- 1829: not awarded
- 1830: not awarded
- 1831: George Biddell Airy
- 1832: Michael Faraday; Simeon Poisson
- 1833: not awarded
- 1834: Giovanni Plana
- 1835: William Snow Harris
- 1836: Jöns Jakob Berzelius; Francis Kiernan
- 1837: Antoine César Becquerel; John Frederic Daniell
- 1838: Carl Friedrich Gauss; Michael Faraday
- 1839: Robert Brown
- 1840: Justus Liebig; Jacques Charles François Sturm
- 1841: Georg Ohm
- 1842: James MacCullagh
- 1843: Jean Baptiste Dumas
- 1844: Carlo Matteucci
- 1845: Theodor Schwann
- 1846: Urbain Le Verrier
- 1847: John Herschel
- 1848: John Couch Adams
- 1849: Roderick Murchison
- 1850: Peter Andreas Hansen
- 1851: Richard Owen
- 1852: Alexander von Humboldt
- 1853: Heinrich Wilhelm Dove
- 1854: Johannes Peter Müller
- 1855: Léon Foucault
- 1856: Henri Milne-Edwards
- 1857: Michel Eugène Chevreul
- 1858: Charles Lyell
- 1859: Wilhelm Weber
- 1860: Robert Wilhelm Bunsen
- 1861: Louis Agassiz
- 1862: Thomas Graham
- 1863: Adam Sedgwick
- 1864: Charles Darwin
- 1865: Michel Chasles
- 1866: Julius Plücker
- 1867: Karl Ernst von Baer
- 1868: Charles Wheatstone
- 1869: Henri Victor Regnault
- 1870: James Prescott Joule
- 1871: Julius Robert von Mayer
- 1872: Friedrich Woehler
- 1873: Hermann Helmholtz
- 1874: Louis Pasteur
- 1875: August Wilhelm Hofmann
- 1876: Claude Bernard
- 1877: James Dwight Dana
- 1878: Jean Baptiste Boussingault
- 1879: Rudolf Clausius
- 1880: James Joseph Sylvester
- 1881: Karl Adolph Wurtz
- 1882: Arthur Cayley
- 1883: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin
- 1884: Carl Ludwig
- 1885: Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz
- 1886: Franz Ernst Neumann
- 1887: Joseph Dalton Hooker
- 1888: Thomas Henry Huxley
- 1889: George Salmon
- 1890: Simon Newcomb
- 1891: Stanislao Cannizzaro
- 1892: Rudolf Virchow
- 1893: George Gabriel Stokes
- 1894: Edward Frankland
- 1895: Karl Weierstrass
- 1896: Karl Gegenbaur
- 1897: Albert von Kolliker
- 1898: William Huggins
- 1899: Lord Rayleigh
1900s
- 1900: Marcellin Berthelot
- 1901: Willard Gibbs
- 1902: Lord Lister
- 1903: Eduard Suess
- 1904: William Crookes
- 1905: Dmitri Mendeleev
- 1906: Elias Metchnikoff
- 1907: Albert Abraham Michelson
- 1908: Alfred Russel Wallace
- 1909: George William Hill
- 1910: Francis Galton
- 1911: George Howard Darwin
- 1912: Felix Klein
- 1913: Ray Lankester
- 1914: Joseph John Thomson
- 1915: Ivan Pavlov
- 1916: James Dewar
- 1917: Emile Roux
- 1918: Hendrik Lorentz
- 1919: William Bayliss
- 1920: Horace Brown
- 1921: Joseph Larmor
- 1922: Ernest Rutherford
- 1923: Horace Lamb
- 1924: Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer
- 1925: Albert Einstein
- 1926: Frederick Hopkins
- 1927: Charles Sherrington
- 1928: Charles Parsons
- 1929: Max Planck
- 1930: William Bragg
- 1931: Arthur Schuster
- 1932: George Ellery Hale
- 1933: Theobald Smith
- 1934: John Scott Haldane
- 1935: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
- 1936: Arthur Evans
- 1937: Henry Dale
- 1938: Niels Bohr
- 1939: Thomas Hunt Morgan
- 1940: Paul Langevin
- 1941: Thomas Lewis
- 1942: Robert Robinson
- 1943: Joseph Barcroft
- 1944: Geoffrey Ingram Taylor
- 1945: Oswald Theodore Avery
- 1946: Edgar Douglas Adrian
- 1947: G.H. Hardy
- 1948: Archibald Vivian Hill
- 1949: George Charles De Hevesy
- 1950: James Chadwick
- 1951: David Keilin
- 1952: Paul Dirac
- 1953: Albert Kluyver
- 1954: Edmund Whittaker
- 1955: Ronald Fisher
- 1956: Patrick Blackett
- 1957: Howard Florey
- 1958: John Edensor Littlewood
- 1959: Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- 1960: Harold Jeffreys
- 1961: Hans Krebs
- 1962: Cyril Norman Hinshelwood
- 1963: Paul Fildes
- 1964: Sydney Chapman
- 1965: Alan Hodgkin
- 1966: William Lawrence Bragg
- 1967: Bernard Katz
- 1968: Tadeus Reichstein
- 1969: Peter Medawar
- 1970: Alexander Todd
- 1971: Norman Pirie
- 1972: Nevill Mott
- 1973: Andrew Huxley
- 1974: W. V. D. Hodge
- 1975: Francis Crick
- 1976: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
- 1977: Frederick Sanger
- 1978: Robert Burns Woodward
- 1979: Max Perutz
- 1980: Derek Harold Richard Barton
- 1981: Peter D. Mitchell
- 1982: John Cornforth
- 1983: Rodney Porter
- 1984: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
- 1985: Aaron Klug
- 1986: Rudolph Peierls
- 1987: Robert Hill
- 1988: Michael Francis Atiyah
- 1989: Cesar Milstein
- 1990: Abdus Salam
- 1991: Sydney Brenner
- 1992: George Porter
- 1993: James D. Watson
- 1994: Charles Frank
- 1995: Frank Fenner
- 1996: Alan Cottrell
- 1997: Hugh Huxley
- 1998: James Lighthill
- 1999: John Maynard Smith
2000s
- 2000: Alan Battersby
- 2001: Jacques Miller
- 2002: John Pople
- 2003: John Gurdon
- 2004: Harold Kroto
- 2005: Paul Nurse
- 2006: Stephen Hawking
- 2007: Robert May
See also
External links
| Medals of the Royal Society: |
|---|
| Copley |
| Buchanan - Darwin - Davy - Gabor - Hughes - Leverhulme - Royal - Rumford - Sylvester |
