In Baldwin’s auction of coins and medals on the 30th. March there is a beautiful large gold presentation medal issued by admiral Earl St. Vincent (Sir John Jervis), featuring his bust on one side and a Naval Officer and an enlisted seaman shaking hands with a union flag backdrop (lot 369). It is encapsulated in two glass ‘lunettes’ with a gold brace and suspension loop (contemporary). The medal weighs around 61.5 gms. (as in unglazed examples) and in all it is 47mm. in diameter. The medal will be 22 carat, although the brace and loop test as 18 carat and protected by the glass is in pristine condition.
When the British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a much larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don Joséde Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal in February 1797, Jervis was made Baron Jervis of Meaford and Earl St Vincent and granted a pension for life of £3,000 per annum.
Three years later he presented silver and bronze examples of this medal to those officers and sailors who followed him from his flagship Victory to the Ville de Paris and remained loyal to him during the mutiny at the Nore (which involved over 10% of the seamen in the Royal Navy). A specimen in gold was presented to George III and is now in the British Museum and there is also another gold example in the National Maritime Museum – the raised inscription around the edge reading +(SOHO)+ STRUCK AT THE MINT OF MATTHEW BOULTON. It is not known how many gold specimens were made or whom else they were given, although it is known that he did give out several throughout his life. We do now however know that the medal was designed by Lady Spencer and this fact is recorded in correspondence to her from Jervis in June 1801.
The medal is expected to sell for over £7,500, indeed at this present moment just the bullion gold value of the item is over £7,300 !
