The Gold Medal is the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier. A controversy arose and no award was made in 1847.

The controversy was "resolved" by giving 12 "testimonial" awards in 1848 to various people including Adams and Le Verrier, and in 1849 awards resumed, with a limit of one per year. Adams and Le Verrier did not get their gold medals until 1866 and 1868, respectively.

The practice of awarding one medal a year continued until 1963, although two medals were awarded in both 1867 and 1886 and in a few years no award was made. Since 1964 there have been two awards in most years, one for astronomy and one for geophysics.

Recipients

• 1824 Charles Babbage, Johann Franz Encke
• 1826 John Herschel, James South, Wilhelm Struve
• 1827 Francis Baily
• 1828 Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, James Dunlop , Caroline Herschel
• 1829 Rev. William Pearson , Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, Heinrich Christian Schumacher
• 1830 William Richardson , Johann Franz Encke
• 1831 Captain Henry Kater, Baron Marie-Charles Damoiseau
• 1833 George Biddell Airy
• 1835 Lieut. Manuel J. Johnson
• 1836 John Herschel
• 1837 Otto A. Rosenberger
• 1839 The Hon. John Wrottesley
• 1840 Giovanni Plana
• 1841 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
• 1842 Peter Andreas Hansen
• 1843 Francis Baily
• 1845 Captain William Henry Smyth
• 1846 George Biddell Airy
• 1849 William Lassell
• 1850 Otto Wilhelm Struve
• 1851 Annibale de Gasparis
• 1852 Christian August Friedrich Peters
• 1853 John Russell Hind
• 1854 Charles Rümker
• 1855 William Rutter Dawes
• 1856 Robert Grant
• 1857 Heinrich Schwabe
• 1858 The Rev. Robert Main
• 1859 Richard Christopher Carrington
• 1860 Peter Andreas Hansen
• 1861 Hermann Goldschmidt
• 1862 Warren de la Rue
• 1863 Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
• 1865 George Phillips Bond
• 1866 John Couch Adams
• 1867 William Huggins, William Allen Miller
• 1868 Urbain Le Verrier
• 1869 Edward James Stone
• 1870 Charles Delaunay
• 1872 Giovanni Schiaparelli
• 1874 Simon Newcomb
• 1875 Heinrich d'Arrest
• 1876 Urbain Le Verrier
• 1878 Baron Ercole Dembowski
• 1879 Asaph Hall
• 1881 Axel Möller
• 1882 David Gill
• 1883 Benjamin A. Gould
• 1884 Andrew Ainslie Common
• 1885 William Huggins
• 1886 Edward Charles Pickering, Charles Pritchard
• 1887 George William Hill
• 1888 Arthur Auwers
• 1889 Maurice Loewy
• 1892 George Howard Darwin
• 1893 Hermann Carl Vogel
• 1894 S. W. Burnham
• 1895 Isaac Roberts
• 1896 Seth Carlo Chandler
• 1897 Edward Emerson Barnard
• 1898 William Frederick Denning
• 1899 Frank McClean
• 1900 Henri Poincaré
• 1901 Edward Charles Pickering
• 1902 Jacobus Kapteyn
• 1903 Hermann Struve
• 1904 George Ellery Hale
• 1905 Lewis Boss
• 1906 William Wallace Campbell
• 1907 Ernest William Brown
• 1908 Sir David Gill
• 1909 Oskar Backlund
• 1910 Friedrich Küstner
• 1911 Philip Herbert Cowell
• 1912 Arthur Robert Hinks
• 1913 Henri-Alexandre Deslandres
• 1914 Max Wolf
• 1915 Alfred Fowler
• 1916 John L. E. Dreyer
• 1917 Walter Sydney Adams
• 1918 John Evershed
• 1919 Guillaume Bigourdan
• 1921 Henry Norris Russell
• 1922 James Hopwood Jeans
• 1923 Albert A. Michelson
• 1924 Arthur Eddington
• 1925 Sir Frank Watson Dyson
• 1926 Albert Einstein
• 1927 Frank Schlesinger
• 1928 Ralph Allen Sampson
• 1929 Ejnar Hertzsprung
• 1930 John Stanley Plaskett
• 1931 Willem de Sitter
• 1932 Robert Grant Aitken
• 1933 Vesto Slipher
• 1934 Harlow Shapley
• 1935 E. Arthur Milne
• 1936 Hisashi Kimura
• 1937 Harold Jeffreys
• 1938 William Hammond Wright
• 1939 Bernard Lyot
• 1940 Edwin Hubble
• 1943 Harold Spencer Jones
• 1944 Otto Struve
• 1945 Bengt Edlen
• 1946 Jan Oort
• 1947 Marcel Minnaert
• 1948 Bertil Lindblad
• 1949 Sydney Chapman
• 1950 Joel Stebbins
• 1951 Anton Pannekoek
• 1952 John Jackson
• 1953 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
• 1954 Walter Baade
• 1955 Dirk Brouwer
• 1956 Thomas George Cowling
• 1957 Albrecht Unsöld
• 1958 André Danjon
• 1959 Raymond Arthur Lyttleton
• 1960 Viktor Ambartsumian
• 1961 Herman Zanstra
• 1962 Bengt Strömgren
• 1963 H. H. Plaskett
• 1964 Martin Ryle, Maurice Ewing
• 1965 Edward Bullard , G. M. Clemence
• 1966 Ira S. Bowen, Harold C. Urey
• 1967 Hannes Alfven, Allan Sandage
• 1968 Sir Fred Hoyle, Walter Munk
• 1969 A. T. Price , Martin Schwarzschild
• 1970 Horace W. Babcock
• 1971 F. Press , Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley
• 1972 H. I. S. Thirlaway , Fritz Zwicky
• 1973 F. Birch , Edwin Salpeter
• 1974 Ludwig Biermann, K. E. Bullen
• 1975 Jesse Greenstein, Ernst Öpik
• 1976 William H. McCrea, J. A. Ratcliffe
• 1977 D. R. Bates , John G. Bolton
• 1978 Lyman Spitzer, James Van Allen
• 1979 L. Knopoff , C. G. Wynne
• 1980 C. L. Pekeris , Maarten Schmidt
• 1981 J. F. Gilbert , Sir Bernard Lovell
• 1982 Riccardo Giacconi, Sir Harrie Massey
• 1983 M. J. Seaton , Fred Whipple
• 1984 S. K. Runcorn , Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich
• 1985 Thomas Gold, Stephen Hawking
• 1986 G. E. Backus , A. Dalgarno
• 1987 Takesi Nagata, Martin Rees
• 1988 D. L. Anderson , C. de Jager
• 1989 R. Hide , K. A. Pounds
• 1990 J. W. Dungey , B. E. J. Pagel
• 1991 Vitaly Ginzburg, G. J. Wasserburg
• 1992 D. P. McKenzie , E. N. Parker
• 1993 Peter Goldreich , Donald Lynden-Bell
• 1994 J. E. Gunn , T. R. Kaiser
• 1995 J. Houghton , Rashid Sunyaev
• 1996 K. Creer , Vera Rubin
• 1997 D. Farley , Donald Osterbrock
• 1998 R. L. Parker , James Peebles
• 1999 K. Budden , Bohdan Paczynski
• 2000 L. Lucy , R. Hutchinson
• 2001 Hermann Bondi, H. Rishbeth
• 2002 Leon Mestel , J. A. Jacobs
• 2003 John Bahcall, D. Gubbins
• 2004 Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Grenville Turner

Silver medals

On two occasions, silver medals were also awarded, but this was soon discontinued.

• 1824 Charles Rümker , Jean-Louis Pons
• 1827 William Samuel Stratford, Col. Mark Beaufoy

"Testimonial" medals of 1848

• George Biddell Airy
• John Couch Adams
• Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
• George Bishop
• Lt-Col. George Everest
• Sir John Herschel
• Peter Andreas Hansen
• Karl Ludwig Hencke
• John Russell Hind
• Urbain Le Verrier
• Sir John William Lubbock
• Maxmilian Weisse

See also

• Royal Astronomical Society

External links

• List of recipients