The Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture is a lecture and associated medal that was created in 1900 by the

Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

to honour the

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...

. The lecture and medal are awarded annually to any scientist who distinguishes themselves in any field of

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...

research. Thomas Huxley was fortunate to have another memorial lecture named his honour,

The Huxley Lecture The Huxley Lecture was a memorial lecture instituted by Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in 1896 to honour Thomas Henry Huxley and is delivered biennially. The Huxley Lecture was one of two memorial lectures created to honour Huxley. The ot ...

that was instituted by the members of

Charing Cross Hospital Medical School Charing Cross Hospital Medical School (CXHMS) was the oldest of the constituent medical schools of Imperial College School of Medicine. Charing Cross remains a hospital on the forefront of medicine; in recent times pioneering the clinical use o ...

in 1896. Huxley had been a member of both the

Ethnological Society of London The Ethnological Society of London (ESL) was a learned society founded in 1843 as an offshoot of the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS). The meaning of ethnology as a discipline was not then fixed: approaches and attitudes to it changed over its ...

(ESL) and the

Anthropological Society of London The Anthropological Society of London (ASL) was a short-lived organisation of the 1860s whose founders aimed to furnish scientific evidence for white supremacy which they construed in terms of polygenism. It was founded in 1863 by Richard Francis ...

since 1863, and he was President of the ESL during its last two years, and Vice President of the Institute when John Lubbock, Lord Avebury was President. A Huxley Lecture Committee was convened in May 1896, which decided that scientist should be invited to deliver a lecture to honour Huxley.

Recipients

References

{{Recipients of the Huxley Memorial Medal British lecture series 1900 establishments in the United Kingdom Recurring events established in 1900 Anthropology awards Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland