Lot 2261

Description

E.R.Cooper Memorial Award, c1950s, struck in bronze (49mm), no maker (Mayer & Kean), unawarded. Extremely fine.

Dr E.R.Cooper was the first Director of the Dominion Physical Laboratory from 1939 to 1950. He subsequently held the position of Assistant Secretary (Physics and Engineering) of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research until his untimely death in 1952.

On the initiative of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Dominion Physical Laboratory, a fund was collected for the purpose of establishing an E.R.Cooper Medal, to be awarded every two years to the author of the best account of research work carried out in New Zealand in physics or engineering. In 1965, the Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand formally accepted responsibility for the administration of the Cooper Medal. The E.R.Cooper Memorial Fund was transferred to the Society by the Technical Advisory Committee of the Dominion Physical Laboratory in memory of the late Edmund Roy Cooper, to support the award of the medal and prize for the encouragement of scientific research in the fields of physics or engineering.

Ex Mayer & Toye (Wellington) Archive, private purchase November 1998.