Australian Historical Medals

Lot 964    Session 4 (4.30pm Tuesday 20 November)    Australian Historical Medals

Estimate $2,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $3,000

NEW SOUTH WALES, Prize Exhibitors medal, 1862 (London), in silver (76mm) by W.Kullrich, inscribed around edge 'F.B.Miller Services'; Agricultural Society of New South Wales, Practice with Science, 1879, in silver (88mm) by Hardy Brothers London & Sydney, inscribed on reverse 'Mr F.B.Miller/(Royal Mint)/for the Originality & Utility of his Inventions/For Purifying Gold/Class 655/No.1788/1870'; Melbourne International Exhibition, 1880, in silver (51mm) by H.Stokes, inscribed around edge 'F.Bowyer Miller - For Services'. First medal with small test cut at 9 o'clock, second medal with minor edge bruise, all lightly polished, otherwise nearly uncirculated. (3)

Francis Bowyer Miller (1828-1887) assayer. He was born 18 December 1828 in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, England and educated at King Edward's Grammar School, Birmingham and King's College, London. He worked with a mining company in Cornwall in 1850 before becoming an assistant to his brother William, professor of Chemistry at King's College, London and non-resident assayer to the Royal Mint and the Bank of England.

In November 1853 Francis Miller and W.S.Jevons were appointed to the newly established Sydney branch of the Royal Mint on William Miller's recommendation. On a retainer of one hundred pounds per annum, they were to establish their own assay offices and to undertake work for private banks and individuals as well as for the mint. By the time the mint opened in May 1855, Miller and Jevons had become full time public servants without the need for private work. In March 1854 Miller and his wife sailed for Sydney where Miller set up an office in Bligh Street. He became a member of the Philosophical (later Royal) Society of New South Wales in November 1859. In July 1860 Miller read a paper for the Society on the detection of spurious gold in particular with a species of fake gold 'nuggets' that had deceived many Sydney storekeepers. His scientific achievement was his development of a process of refining and toughening gold by means of chlorine gas. He patented this process in London in June 1867 and registered it as an invention before the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in November. A year later his paper describing the process was read before the Chemical Society, London and in November 1869 before the Royal Society of New South Wales. By this time his method had been successfully put into operation at the Sydney Mint and by the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland. In 1870 Miller was transferred to the new branch of the Royal Mint in Melbourne and was paid two thousand pounds for the sole Victorian rights to the gold refining process. Miller's method was introduced into mints in England, the USA and Norway. He was superintendent of the bullion office at the Melbourne Mint from 1877 and in 1884 briefly acted as deputy master. He died at his home in Kew on 17 September 1887.


Together with Certificate for Agricultural Society of New South Wales medal, 1870; Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1869; Royal Mint, Melbourne, 1882 correspondence; letters; call receipts (5) dated 1884-1887, for the Cobunga Gold Mining Company and Hunt's Extended Gold Mining Company,