Copley Medal

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Images

James Bradley, detail of an oil painting after Thomas Hudson, c. 1742-47; in the National Portrait Gallery, London

John Harrison, detail of an oil painting by Thomas King; in the Science Museum, London

Sir John Pringle, detail of an engraving by W.H. Mote after a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Cavendish, Henry

Joseph Priestley

Nevil Maskelyne, detail from an engraving by E. Scriven after a portrait by Vanderburgh.

James Cook, oil painting by John Webber; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Copley Medal: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Notable Honorees

Charles Darwin • Benjamin Franklin • Albert Einstein • Michael Faraday • Thomas Henry Huxley • Louis Pasteur • Hermann von Helmholtz • Alexander von Humboldt • Ernest Rutherford • Niels Bohr • William Thomson, Baron Kelvin • Max Planck • Jöns Jacob Berzelius • Justus, baron von Liebig • Charles Lyell • Joseph Priestley • Dmitri Mendeleev • Alfred Russel Wallace • William Herschel • Henry Cavendish • Rudolf Virchow • Claude Bernard • Carl Friedrich Gauss • Ivan Pavlov • Frederick Sanger • James Cook • Sir Humphry Davy • P.A.M. Dirac • Louis Agassiz • J.J. Thomson • Thomas Hunt Morgan • Pierre-Eugène-Marcellin Berthelot • Joseph Lister • Stanislao Cannizzaro • Francis Galton • Friedrich Wöhler • Michel-Eugène Chevreul • Robert Burns Woodward • William Hyde Wollaston • James D. Dana • Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet • Dorothy Hodgkin • Karl Ernst von Baer • A.A. Michelson • Johannes Müller • Simon Newcomb • Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas • George Ellery Hale • James Bradley • August Kekule von Stradonitz • Lord Rayleigh • Sir Lawrence Bragg • Sir William Bragg • Arthur Cayley • James Watson • Robert Brown • J. Willard Gibbs • Richard Owen • Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher • Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls • John Gurdon • Tomas Lindahl • Sir Charles Frank • James Chadwick • Sir James Lighthill • Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker • Francis Crick • Julius Plücker • Siméon-Denis Poisson • Peter Higgs • Karl Weierstrass • Andrew Wiles • Sir Peter B. Medawar • James Joseph Sylvester • Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet • Stephen Hawking • Sir Arthur Evans • Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar • Sir George Biddell Airy • Hendrik Antoon Lorentz • Oswald Avery • François Arago • Alessandro Volta • G.H. Hardy • Sir Charles Scott Sherrington • Sir Alan Cottrell • Sir Hans Adolf Krebs • Michel Chasles • Sir Macfarlane Burnet • Élie Metchnikoff • Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier • Sir Michael Francis Atiyah • Jocelyn Bell Burnell • Edward Waring • Robert Bunsen • Sir Harold Jeffreys • John Hunter • Theodor Schwann • Max Ferdinand Perutz • Sir William Maddock Bayliss • Theobald Smith • Sir Roderick Impey Murchison • Eduard Suess • Sir Harold W. Kroto • Roger Penrose • Felix Klein • John B. Goodenough • Sir John A. Pople • Carl F.W. Ludwig • David Cox • Stephen Hales • John Goodricke • César Milstein • John Smeaton • Adam Sedgwick • Patrick Blackett • Georg Charles von Hevesy • Sydney Brenner • Sir Alan Hodgkin • Aaron Klug • Sir John Cornforth • C.T.R. Wilson • Charles-François Sturm • Sir Charles Algernon Parsons • A.V. Hill • Sir William Crookes • Sir Edwin Ray Lankester • Hugh Esmor Huxley • Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd • Paul Nurse • Martin Evans • Sir David Brewster • Sir William Hodge • Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley • Thomas Graham • Abdus Salam • John Frederic Daniell • Léon Foucault • Sir George Darwin • Jean André Deluc • Sir Nevill F. Mott • Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet • Sir Henry Dale • Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins • Tadeus Reichstein • James Prescott Joule • John Scott Haldane • August Wilhelm von Hofmann • William Prout • Rudolf Clausius • Wilhelm Eduard Weber • James Rennell • Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood • Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey • Sir George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham • William Huggins • John Harrison • Rodney Robert Porter • Sir James Dewar • Peter Andreas Hansen • Sir Bernard Katz • John Couch Adams • Sir Edward Frankland • Nevil Maskelyne • William Buckland • Peter Barlow • Sir Horace Lamb • George William Hill • Rudolf Albert von Kölliker • Karl Gegenbaur • Richard Kirwan • Sir Robert Robinson • Edward Sabine • Émile Roux • Hans Christian Ørsted • Abraham Trembley • Sir Charles Wheatstone • Thomas Andrew Knight • Peter Dennis Mitchell • Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1st Baronet • Sydney Chapman • Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet • Henri-Victor Regnault • Jean-Baptiste Boussingault • Charles-Adolphe Wurtz • Georg Ohm • John Dollond • Sir William Hamilton • John Canton • Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer • Franz Ernst Neumann • Edward Troughton • William Hewson • John Pond • Gowin Knight • Benjamin Robins • Sir Joseph Larmor • Charles Hatchett

Photos

James Bradley, detail of an oil painting after Thomas Hudson, c. 1742-47; in the National Portrait Gallery, London

John Harrison, detail of an oil painting by Thomas King; in the Science Museum, London

Sir John Pringle, detail of an engraving by W.H. Mote after a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Cavendish, Henry

Joseph Priestley

Nevil Maskelyne, detail from an engraving by E. Scriven after a portrait by Vanderburgh.

James Cook, oil painting by John Webber; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Topics

science