The Theft of the Glover Medal
John Glover (1767-1849) was
already a well-known and established artist when he arrived in Tasmania in 1831.
Among his belongings and mementoes of his former life, was a gold medal awarded
to him by Louis XVIII of France.
In autumn 1814, after Napoleon’s
abdication, Glover had gone on a ‘grand tour’. He travelled along the Rhine in
Germany and through Switzerland. He explored the Alps and from there went on to
Paris. While in Paris, he painted a large canvas (six feet by four feet/183cm x
274cm) The Bay of Naples. The
painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1814 and Louis XVIII ordered a
gold medal awarded to its creator. The painting is now owned by Cardiff
Corporation. Before Louis XVIII had presented the medal, Napoleon had returned
from exile in Elba and Louis VIII had fled France. Napoleon later sent the
medal to Glover in England.
The medal awarded to Glover was bequeathed
to the Launceston Mechanics’ Institute by the executors of the will of John
Glover’s eldest son, John Richardson Glover, in 1868. John Glover Junior (1790-1868) came with his
parents to Tasmania. He was a farmer and also an artist in his own right. He
painted and drew many Tasmanian scenes, particularly of the family farm Patterdale, and of the nearby small
towns of Evandale, Nile and Deddington.
In 1892 the Launceston Mechanics’
Institute lent the medal to the newly-established Victoria Museum. The Victoria Museum, which opened in 1891, was largely set up with the
art and museum collections of the Mechanics’ Institute. Documentation shows that the medal however was definitely on loan and not given to the Museum at the time.
It is not known for how long or
how often the medal was on display in the intervening years but it was stolen
from a display case in the Museum on 20 January 1904 in what the Examiner in its report, called ‘an
impudent robbery’.
The Curator at the time, HH
Scott, reported that he was distracted by helping patrons and that a group of
men must have been watching his movements. It seems the robbery was
meticulously planned and the locks picked. There were six locks and four
catches protecting the medal. A number of medals were taken, but the Glover was
the most valuable, the gold being worth about £15.
The theft was reported in the Examiner the
following day: ‘Three of the locks were picked, but not broken. The case and
its contents were intact at 10 o’clock, and the robbery was carried out at
about 11 o’clock. The case, which was about 12 ft long, had to be moved out
from the wall in order that the work of opening it might be more easily
managed.’
The loss of the medal was keenly felt
by members of the Mechanics’ Institute. In April the Mechanics’ Institute wrote
to the Council requesting the return of the medal. The Town Clerk, Percy Claude
Rocher, wrote in reply ‘… your letter was considered by the Museum Committee on
Monday last when I was directed to convey to you the expressions of their
regret that the medal presented with others to the Museum had been stolen from
the institution’.
In May the Mechanics’ Institute made a claim
to the state government for compensation but the outcome of the claim is
unknown.
On 31 May, Rocher again wrote to the
Mechanics’ Institute ‘while deeply
regretting the loss of this medal, the Museum Committee do not agree with the
view expressed in your letter of 27th ultimo and cannot recognize
any liability on the part of Council in the matter’. Rocher did later confirm
that the medal had been on loan and remained the property of the Mechanics’
Institute.
It seems most likely that the medal was
stolen for the gold it contained. Despite police being involved, no-one was
charged over the theft and the fate of the medal remains a mystery.
Prue McCausland
….
