Footnotes

MEMORIAL MEDAL FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON, STRUCK IN SILVER AT THE ROYAL MINT BY HIS HEIR AND EXECUTOR JOHN CONDUITT. Newton died intestate on 20 March 1727. He had been Master of the Mint since 1699 and on his death the post went to John Conduitt, who for some years had acted as his deputy. Conduitt, who was married to Newton's favourite niece, Catherine Barton, was appointed executor to his estate. Not only was he active at the Mint, writing a much-praised treatise Observations on the Present State of our Gold and Silver Coins (1730), but he had long hero-worshipped his uncle, and through negotiations with other heirs gathered his papers together with a view to writing his biography; these papers were later inherited by his son-in-law, the second Earl of Portsmouth, and are now, for the most part, at Cambridge. It was Conduitt who on behalf of the heirs took charge of plans for a monument to Newton in Westminster Abbey, which was erected in 1731 at about the same time as this medal was minted.

The medal is the work of the Dresden-born John Croker, formerly Johann Crocker, who had been assistant to the Chief Engraver of the Mint, then situated in the Tower of London, from 1697 and who succeeded as Chief Engraver in 1704. He held this post until his death in 1741, remaining active until about 1732 when – in the words of George Vertue – he grew 'grosse and heavy – lethargick'. Newton, as Master (that is, master coiner) of the Mint, was responsible for Croker's appointment: 'there is a determination from the time of Newton that the Mint should never find itself without a skilled engraver, for the quality of engraving was seen as the best protection against counterfeiting. The death of the unsatisfactory Henry Harris in 1704 gave Newton and his senior colleagues the opportunity for which they had been waiting to review the establishment of the engraving department... recommending the German-born John Croker as chief engraver... In 1706 the privilege of making medals for sale was confirmed, so that engravers might have work to do when little was required for the coinage' (A New History of the Royal Mint, edited by C.E. Challis, 1992, p. 409). Newton's close personal involvement in Croker's career is shown, for example, by an autograph memorandum of about 1700 in which he complains that Harris 'cannot emboss nor punch, nor draw' and has employed Croker to do all this for him without remuneration (National Archives, Kew, Mint 19/I.174; see the online Newton Project).

Croker has signed the present medal 'C.I.' in the die. The portrait of Newton on the obverse is based on the memorial bust Conduitt commissioned from Michael Rysbrack, who is believed to have been responsible for Newton's death mask (a cast of which was owned by Conduitt, see the catalogue by Scott Mandelbrote, Footprints of the Lion: Isaac Newton at Work, Cambridge University Library, 2001, no. 66). The female figure on the reverse is taken from the pedestal of the same Rysbrack bust and represents Urania holding a plan of the Newtonian solar system. The Rysbrack bust itself is undated but appears in a picture painted by Hogarth in about 1730, and was probably executed at about the same time that Conduitt commissioned the Newton Monument in Westminster Abbey (see the description of the pewter example in the online Caltech Archives, California Institute of Technology; Milo Keynes, The Iconography of Sir Isaac Newton to 1800, 2003; Mandelbrote, no. 67; Edward Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations, 1885, ii, no. 83, pp. 469-470).