James Dewar - Honors and Awards

Honors and Awards

Whilst Dewar was never recognised by the Swedish Academy, he was recognised by many other institutions both before and after his death, both in Britain and overseas. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1877 and bestowed their Rumford (1894), Davy (1909), and Copley Medal(1916) medals upon him for his work, as well as inviting him to deliver their Bakerian Lecture in 1901. In 1899 he became the first recipient of the Hodgkins gold medal of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for his contributions to our knowledge of the nature and properties of atmospheric air.

In 1904 he was the first British subject to receive the Lavoisier medal of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1906 he was the first to be awarded the Matteucci medal of the Italian Society of Sciences. He was knighted in 1904 and awarded the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for 1900-1904 by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 1908 he was awarded the Albert medal of The Society of Arts. A lunar crater has been named in his honor.

James Dewar died in London in 1923, still holding the office of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, having refused to retire. He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium where his ashes remain.