Anglo-Trinidadian Botanist Henry Prestoe & the 1878 Paris Expo

As mentioned in a previous blog post, award medals often combine the elegant and artistic elements of numismatics with interesting aspects of material culture, often relating an individual to a particular event in time. Such is the case with a fascinating silver medal in our June Ancient & World Coins Collectors Choice Online (CCO) auction. Emanating from the 1878 International Exposition (World's Fair) held in Paris, this award medal was designed by the refined hand of Jules-Clément Chaplain, a key figure in the founding of the Art Nouveau movement.

The obverse features the head of Ceres wearing a laurel wreath, while the reverse depicts Fama announcing winners with her trumpet and victory wreath and a cherub holding up a plaque meant to host the winner's name. In the case of this medal, the recipient was "Docteur H. Prestoe." A search of the "Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878, to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, Vol. II" uncovers that an "H. Prestoe" from Port of Spain in Trinidad received a silver award in class 44 on the topic of wood. Undoubtedly relating to the same individual, the medal in question is our piece in the upcoming June auction.

Delving further into the career of Prestoe, one realizes the important role he played in botany in the second half of the 19th century. Born in Hampshire, England, Prestoe contributed greatly to the field while based in Trinidad (then a crown colony of the British Empire), writing the "Catalog of Plants Cultivated in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, from 1865-1870," and served as curator of the Trinidad Botanic Gardens. He was instrumental in the introduction of coffee growing to Trinidad, as is made evident by letters to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew such as the following:

(Director's Correspondence 213/478, 10 October 1876)

Cementing Prestoe's status in the world of botany is the fact that, within taxonomy, his Latinized name is even utilized for the three different species of plants: "annona prestoei"-a type of edible fruit and medicinal plant; "desmoncus prestoei"-a type of climbing palm, and "arundinaria prestoei"-a type of bamboo.

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