Spectacle Makers' Medals

Throughout its history, members of the WCSM have played (and still play) a prominent role in optical research, and they have been responsible for many of the innovations and improvements in the field of vision science that we now take for granted.

But it is only recently that the Company has begun to bestow its own mark of recognition on such work.

In 2001, it struck a bronze (RUSKELL) medal, which has since been awarded annually (with a monetary award), to encourage postgraduate entrants to the professions to make their first published contribution to the advancement of basic, clinical or technical ophthalmic science. The first silver (FINCHAM) medal, introduced to honour exceptional work by those in mid-career, was awarded in 1995. Twelve years earlier, however, the Company had presented the first of the nine gold (LORD CROOK) medals awarded to date in recognition of a lifetime of "outstanding contributions to the understanding or improvement of vision".

The Lord Crook Medal

Honouring the memory of The Rt. Hon. The Lord Crook of Carshalton 1901–1989

Reginald Douglas Crook devoted his life to public service, both at home and abroad. He was raised to the peerage in 1947.

A life-long labour politician, he held many significant public offices, ranging from Chairman of the National Dock Labour Board, through Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of the Committees in the House of Lords, to founder member and President of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust.

In 1950, he was appointed the United Kingdom's delegate to the fifth General Assembly of the United Nations in 1950. Whilst in New York, he was elected a member of the seven-nation Administrative Tribunal. Re-elected every three years, he continued in that post until 1971, becoming the UN's longest serving honorary officer, only being denied the presidency of the Tribunal by his age.

Recipients to date:

• Sir Alan Hodgkin OM, FRS [and Nobel Prize winner] (1983) – for work that had increased understanding of the mechanism of conversion of light-energy patterns of the retinal image into electrical patterns which are transmitted to the brain.
• Professor WD Wright DSc, ARCS, DIC (1985) – for research into colour vision, colour measurement and television.
• Harold Ridley Esquire MD, FRCS, FRS, (later Sir Harold Ridley) (1987) – for pioneering work in lens implant techniques, and his important original contribution to tropical ophthalmology, particularly in onchocerciasis, nutrional amblyopia, keratomalacia in infants and ocular leprosy.
• Professor Norman H Ashton CBE, DSc, FRCP, FRCS, FRS (1989) – for proving that the cause of bilateral blindness in premature babies was the high oxygen content in the incubators, and thereby eliminating what had been a tragic epidemic in the early 1950s.
• Professor Horace Barlow MB, BCh, MD, ScD, FRS (1993) – for pioneering work on lateral inhibition in the vertebrate retina.
• Professor Richard Langton Gregory CBE, MA, DSc, LLD, FRS (1996) – for his profound evaluations of the relationship between perception, especially visual perception, and the physical world.
• Professor John Marshall BSc, PhD, FRCPath, Hon FCOptom, Hon FRCOphth, FLIA, FRSA (2001) – for his pioneering work with the utilisation of laser light in the diagnosis and treatment of ocular conditions and, in particular, the creation of laser refractive surgery.
• Professor Colin Blakemore PhD, ScD, FIBiol, F Med Sci, FRS (2004) – for revolutionizing understanding of the interactions between the eye and the brain, and the development of visual processing.
• Professor John Mollon DSc, FRS (2008) – for revolutionizing our understanding of colour perception.

The Ninth Crook Medalist

The Master presents the ninth Crook Medal to Professor John Mollon of Cambridge University

During the Livery Dinner in Drapers' Hall on Tuesday 29th April, the Master presented the ninth Crook Medal to Professor John Mollon of Cambridge University.

Professor John Mollon is a world authority on colour perception. His pioneering research has revolutionised our understanding of this phenomenon, and resulted in his election to the Royal Society in 1999.

His laboratory studies have provided clear evidence that both the eye and the brain are intimately involved in processing information on colours, and has led to an influential shift in thinking about the ways in which the brain modulates perception of colour. His work has provided a link between behavioural studies on perception, photochemistry and genetics, and he has adduced the first clear evidence as to why variations in colour vision can be an advantage in social animals such as man.

More recently, Professor Mollon has established the Cambridge database of the natural spectra of rain forest fruits and leaves, together with spectral measurements of primate fur and skin, data which provide botanists and zoologists with a more quantitative specification of colours than are given by everyday colour terms. This resource has also provided visual scientists with novel materials for modelling the responses of human and animal eyes to biological targets, and the backgrounds against which they must be detected.

The Fincham Medal

The Master presents the fourth Fincham Medal to Dr James Bainbridge MA, PhD, FRCOphth.

Honouring the contribution to ophthalmic optics of Walter and Edgar Fincham

Recipients to date:

• Professor Neville McBrien PhD, FAAO, MCOptom, FBDO (1995) – for his research into myopia, and in particular how the abnormal growth of the eye is controlled in pathological myopia.
• Dr Ian Flitcroft MA, DPhil, FRCOphth (2002) – for his research on human accommodation, especially the nature of the visual stimuli that drive accommodation, and the relationship between binocular vision and accommodation reflex.
• Professor Robin Ali PhD (2004) – for his pioneering work on gene therapy, which revealed that animal vision could be sustained and improved in animals with inherited retinal diseases by introducing normal genes using a viral vector.

Presentation of the fourth Fincham Medal

At the Court Luncheon on 16th December, the Master presented the fourth Fincham Medal to Dr James Bainbridge MA, PhD, FRCOphth. This medal is awarded to those who, whilst still in mid-career, are already deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of visual science. In Dr Bainbridge's case, the presentation recognizes his work in the field of gene therapy in relation to inherited retinal diseases.

The Ruskell Medal

Honouring the memory of the late (Liveryman) Professor Gordon Ruskell who was particular well known for his contribution to unravelling the secrets of ocular motor control of extraocular muscles.

Recent Recipients:

Presentation of the 2008 Ruskell Medal

The 2008 Ruskell Medal is presented to Dr Yuan Lei

The 2008 Ruskell Medal was awarded to Dr Yuan Lei, a Chinese citizen, for a paper entitled "Quantification of retinal transneuronal degeneration in human glaucoma: a novel multiphoton-DAPI approach", of which she was first named author, and which was accepted for publication in the leading international journal of ophthalmology, "Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science" in January 2008.

She wrote it whilst studying for her doctorate at the School of Ophthalmology in Cardiff University, the subject of her research and thesis being the investigation of retinal plasticity in ageing and glaucoma. Dr Lei obtained her Doctorate in July 2008, and has since been engaged in research into the aetiology of glaucoma at the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College, London. She received the Medal from the Master at the Court Luncheon on 1st October 2008. Unfortunately Dr Monika Heydrich was unable to collect the 2009 award in person.