The 1851 Great Exhibition in London, and its medals have long been a passion of mine. I recently acquired a "For Services" medal named to an M. Walker. It turns out he was amember of the US Committee that organized the American participation in the exhibition. I am having difficulty finding out much of anything about who he was, even his full name.

The First Report of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851 (London: 1852, Her Majesty's Stationery Office), Appendix V, page 45, Executive Organization, Foreign Arrangements, has:

I am hoping some reader might enlighten me, or perhaps point me to an information source that will help me begin my research into "M. Walker" - his full name, who he was and where he wasfrom.

I also wonder if someone else out there has studied the 1851 Exhibition and has perhaps really gotten into the American presence there. Much has been written about the successes of the U.S. at theevent (which were impressive) even though general opinion then was that the participation was a little "light" because the promotion of possible benefits to U.S. industry was not given muchpriority.