The Dalton Medal of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society is a distinction only rarely bestowed by the Society, and is the Society’s highest award. It is given to those who have made a distinguished contribution to science. Since 1898 the medal has only been awarded on 15 occasions. All recipients have been Fellows of the Royal Society and many have been Nobel Prize winners. Several have Manchester and University of Manchester/Owens College connections with the Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Engineering. Only one woman, so far, has been awarded this medal.
Awadrees:
1st 1898 Dr Henry Edward Schunck FRS (1820-1903) was an English chemist and expert on natural dyestuffs. He was born in Manchester and lived in Kersal, Salford where he died. He started his studies in Manchester with William Henry. He bequeathed his laboratory to Owens College and it was moved in 1906 to Burlington Street where it is still known as the Schunck Building. The Schunck Library is in the Chemistry Department.
2nd 1900 Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe FRS (1833-1915) was an English chemist noted for his work on the element vanadium and for photochemical studies. He was the grandson of the famous William Roscoe of Liverpool, cousin of Stanley Jevons and uncle to Beatrix Potter. Educated at the Liverpool Institute for Boys and with Robert Bunsen in Heidelberg. Appointed 2nd Professor of Chemistry at Owens College, Manchester and held post from 1857 to 1886. MP for Manchester South 1885 to 1895.
3rd 1903 Professor Osborne Reynolds FRS (1842-1912) was a British engineer, physicist and educator. He was Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at Owens College, Manchester from 1868 to 1904.
4th 1919 Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford OM FRS (1871-1937) was a New Zealand physicist and ‘father of nuclear physics’. He was the Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1907-1919 where he split the atom in a building on Coupland Street. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.
5th 1931 Sir Joseph J Thomson OM FRS (1856-1940) was an English experimental physicist born in Cheetham Hill in Manchester who enrolled at Owens College in 1870. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906. His son, Professor Sir George Paget Thomson, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937.
6th 1942 Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH OBE MC FRS (1890-1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 with his father and became its youngest ever recipient. He was the Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1919 to 1937.
7th 1948 Professor Patrick Blackett OM CH FRS (1897-1974) was an English experimental physicist and cosmologist. He was the Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1937 to 1953. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948.
8th 1966 Professor Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood OM FRS (1897-1967) was an English physical chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1956.
9th 1981 Professor Dorothy Hodgkin OM FRS (1910-1994) was a British biochemist who developed protein crystallography. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.
10th 1997 Professor Sir Harold Kroto FRS (1939-2016) was an English chemist famous for his discovery of fullerenes and is most famously associated with buckminsterfullerene C60 (buckyballs). Educated at the University of Sheffield. He was a great promoter of science education, particularly for young people and a huge ambassador for the public engagement of science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996.
11th 2002 Sir Walter Fred Bodmer FRS (born 1936) is a German-born British human geneticist who was educated at Manchester Grammar School.
12th 2005 Professor Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (born 1931) is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science.
13th 2009 Professor Sir Bernard Lovell OBE FRS (1913-2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He established and was the first Director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester.
14th 2012 Professor Lord Martin Rees OM FRS FMedSci (born 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. Born in Shropshire he has the title The Lord Rees of Ludlow. He has been the Astronomer Royal since 1995.
15th 2016 Professor Sir Konstantin Novoselov FRS FRSC FInstP (born 1974) is a Russian-British physicist, and Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.
