Item Details: Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Founder’s Gold Medal. Obverse: portrait of William IV. Reverse: Britannia, wearing a helmet and holding a wreath in her outstretched right hand and a map in her left, standing next to a sextant and globe. Struck in gold.
About the Item
The Museum collection contains thousands of medals, yet this is the only example of a Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Founder’s Gold Medal we have.
RGS gold medals were first awarded in 1831, accompanied by an annual gift of 50 guineas from King William IV. In 1839 the Society resolved that this sum should be divided into two medals of equal value. Since then, two gold medals have been awarded annually: the Founder’s Medal and the Patron’s Medal. Both awards must be approved by the sovereign.
This particular medal was awarded to Lieutenant Boyd Alexander of The Rifle Brigade in 1908 “for his three years’ journey across Africa from the Niger to the Nile” undertaken between 1904 and 1907.
Lieutenant Alexander is one of only two Green Jacket officers to receive an RGS Gold Medal. The other is Brigadier Sir John Hunt, leader of the successful 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition.
About Lieutenant Boyd Alexander
Boyd Alexander was born in Kent and educated at Radley and Sandhurst.
He was first commissioned into a Militia battalion of the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort’s Own), and in October 1900 he accepted a commission into a regular battalion of the regiment in which his father had previously served. He was promoted to lieutenant on 22nd January 1902.
In 1904 Alexander was granted leave of absence to lead what came to be known as the Alexander–Gosling Expedition, which crossed Africa from the Niger to the Nile and explored the regions surrounding Lake Chad. He was joined by his brother, Captain Claud Alexander of the Scots Guards; Captain G. B. Gosling, a fellow Rifle Brigade officer; and a Portuguese collector, José Lopez.
Tragically, both his brother and Captain Gosling died of disease during the three-year journey, leaving Alexander and Lopez to complete the expedition alone. Alexander later presented an account of their travels to the RGS on 13th May 1907 and published a two-volume narrative, From the Niger to the Nile, dedicated “To my Lost Companions.” He received the RGS Founder’s Gold Medal in 1908 and resigned his commission in the Rifle Brigade shortly thereafter.
In 1909 he returned to Africa to continue his explorations. The following year he set out to cross the continent from Nigeria to Khartoum. On 2 April 1910, despite warnings from French authorities in Chad that the region was too dangerous, he pressed on and was accidentally shot dead in a contretemps in the British territory of Tama. His body was recovered by José Lopez and buried near the resting place of his “Lost Companions”—his brother, Claud, and Captain Gosling—at Maifoni on the shores of Lake Chad. Alexander’s death was deeply mourned by his father, who had now lost two sons to the hardships of exploration in central Africa, and by the officers of his former regiment, The Rifle Brigade.
