[Chemistry]

The Henry G. Smith Memorial Medal for chemistry awarded to Sir Geoffrey Badger, eminent organic chemist and later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, in 1950. The cast bronze medal was designed by Eileen McGrath (a pupil of Raynor Hoff) and produced by Amor Pty Ltd, Sydney, around 1934

Cast bronze medal (156 mm in diameter), in fine condition; housed in the original presentation case (a trifle rubbed).

The medal was established by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1927 in honour of the biochemist Henry George Smith (1852-1924). The obverse features a portrait in low relief of Smith, and the reverse shows his birth and death dates and the Latin motto 'Solum utile verum'.

South Australian-born Sir Geoffrey Malcolm Badger (1916-2002) '... served as a Research Chemist in Imperial Chemical Industries in the United Kingdom from 1941-43. In 1943 he volunteered for the Royal Navy and became an Instructor Lieutenant. In 1946 he joined the University of Glasgow as an ICI Research Fellow. He returned to Australia in 1949 to accept a position as Senior Lecturer in the University of Adelaide and became Reader (1951) and Professor of Organic Chemistry (1955). He resigned in 1964 to become a Member of the Executive of CSIRO; but at the end of 1965 he was encouraged to return to Adelaide to become Deputy Vice-Chancellor. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor in March 1967 and completed a ten-year term in March 1977. He then became Research Professor of Organic Chemistry in the University of Adelaide. He retired from his Chair towards the end of 1979' (from the biographical note to accompany Badger's papers held by the Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide [MSS 0011]).