1 Australia, The Halloran School Prize Medal

Provenance:

• Morton & Eden, Ltd.; December 2, 2009, lot 351

The following catalogue description was provided courtesy of James Morton, of Morton & Eden:

A similar medal (awarded to William M. Campbell) was included in Noble Numismatics, Pty. Auction, Melbourne, 22-24 July 2008.  [see Noble Numismatics, 22-24 July 2008, Lot 705] The catalogue entry for the sale included a detailed footnote on Laurence Halloran's career and the information that five examples of the medal were recorded at the time - awarded to Robert Campbell in 1819, Francis Lord in 1822, Charles Driver and William Campbell in 1823, and to Henry Halloran in 1824.  The present piece, recently recognised in a UK private collection where it has remained for many years, therefore appears to be the sixth known.  The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser of 1 July 1824, under the heading 'Sydney Grammar School', states: '.The first silver Medal was awarded by Doctor Halloran, to Master John Tawell, who, by assiduity of application, has in one year from the commencement of the study of the Latin language, qualified himself, to read Cæsar and Virgil, and to apply the rules of Syntax and Prosody, with readiness and facility.'.

Laurence Hynes Halloran (or O'Halloran), teacher, writer, inveterate litigant and bogus clergyman, was born in County Meath, Ireland in 1765.  Orphaned at a young age he was educated at Christ's Hospital and appears eventually (in 1800) to have been awarded a doctorate in divinity from King's College, Aberdeen.  However he never achieved the Anglican ordination he so craved, instead assuming it - with considerable success - for most of his life.

In 1783 as a young naval midshipman, Halloran was jailed for stabbing and killing a colleague.  Although acquitted shortly afterwards, he was later to become embroiled in a number of duels and in numerous disputes.  He married in 1784 and ran private classical schools in Exeter and Alphington (near Exeter) for some 12 years during which he achieved recognition as a skilled and accomplished educator, despite also being charged with immorality.  A 1794 silver medal from Alphington, hallmarked for the silversmiths H. And J. Sweet of Exeter, is known (see Grimshaw, M.E. Silver Medals, Badges and Trophies from Schools in the British Isles 1550-1850 (privately printed, Cambridge), p. 21).  Finely engraved with the Minerva and pupil motif, the piece very clearly provided the inspiration for the Sydney pieces by Clayton which were to come.

Forced to give up his Alphington school in 1796 through insolvency, Halloran managed to re-join the navy by posing as a chaplain and was additionally appointed as Secretary to Lord Northesk, third-in-command (after Nelson and Collingwood) at the Battle of Trafalgar.  The Trafalgar Roll confirms the presence of 'Rev. L.H. Halloran, D.D.' at the battle, as Chaplain on board Northesk's flagship Britannia.  Halloran's lengthy poem The Battle of Trafalgar, written in a classical, epic style, was published in London in 1806.  He was also invited to, and attended, Nelson's funeral, and subsequently delivered a sermon on Nelson's death.

The 'Reverend Dr.' Halloran was appointed Chaplain to H.M. Forces in the Cape, sailing to South Africa in 1807 with the added brief that he would 'receive 12 young gentlemen as pupils' (see Philip, Peter, British Residents at The Cape 1795-1819, 1981).  The position seemed promising but Halloran's behaviour, including libel, disobeying orders and pecuniary irregularities, soon led to severe disagreements with the Forces Commander General Grey.  By 1810 Halloran had been found guilty of defamatory libel, was fined heavily, and was expelled from the Colony.  Exposed as an impostor and fraud, a special Act of Parliament was required to retrospectively solemnise the numerous marriage ceremonies he had performed in South Africa without proper authority, some of which involved officers of high standing.  Back in England his colourful past was catching up with him, and after several years spent trying to rebuild his social standing Halloran was caught trying to forge accreditation for himself as a curate.  He was transported to Australia for 7 years, arriving in Sydney in June, 1819.

Sydney offered fresh opportunities.  With the aid of friends and the support of Governor Macquarie (who was later to call him 'the best and most admired instructor of youth in the Colony'), Halloran was soon able to open his 'establishment for liberal education', also known as 'Sydney Free Public Grammar School'.  He was joined by his second family and their unmarried mother (who may have been Halloran's own niece) in 1822.  She died following the birth of their twelfth child and in August 1824 he married Elizabeth Turnbull, aged 17, who was to bear him several more children.

Halloran appears by general consent to have been an inspiring teacher but he also had an obsessive sense of persecution, a weakness for indulging in litigation, a poor sense of financial management and a penchant for writing libellous tracts.  As he reeled from one crisis to the next, the school's fortunes wavered violently and it underwent several reincarnations before Halloran's death in 1831, following his temporary appointment as Sydney's Coroner.

The engraver of Halloran's medal, Samuel Clayton, had also been transported for forgery in 1816 (see Grimshaw, M.E. In Proceedings of the Silver Society, London, 1984).

John Dawning Tawell, the recipient of this example of the medal, arrived in Sydney with his mother Mary, and younger brother William, in 1823.  They were joining their father, John Tawell (Senior) and the brothers both attended Halloran's school.  The whole family returned in 1831 to London, where William died young.  John D. Tawell studied medicine in England, qualifying as a surgeon and apothecary before returning to Australia where he planned to build upon his father's business in Sydney.  He is known to have travelled to New Zealand in 1837 on behalf of an English friend but he too died at the early age of 27, following a lung complaint, in 1838.

The career of John Tawell Senior is an extraordinary one and is well-documented (see inter alia Geoff Miller's account published in The Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. 269 (2002), pp. 905-907).  While Halloran purported to be an ordained priest, Tawell feigned the piety of a devout Quaker to support his various endeavours.  But like Halloran, Tawell's lifestyle was such that the Society of Friends never felt itself in a position to admit him as a genuine, full member.

As a young man Tawell Senior was employed by a Quaker linen-draper, Janson of Whitechapel, where he seduced a young housemaid named Mary.  When she became pregnant the couple married and were forced to leave Janson's on account of their 'disorderly and immoral conduct'.  Tawell obtained a position with a firm of druggists and patent medicine wholesalers where he learned much but earned little.  He turned to the potentially lucrative but dangerous business of banknote forgery, being caught when he tried to order a replacement printing plate for £10 notes of Smiths' Uxbridge Bank.  Fortunately for Tawell the Smiths were (genuine) Quakers who disapproved of the death penalty, which was statutory for his offence.  By agreeing to plead guilty to the lesser charge of 'possession', he escaped the noose and was transported instead, arriving in Sydney aboard the Marquis of Wellington in 1815.

By dint of hard work and - like Halloran - by obtaining the support both of his friends and of Governor Macquarie, Tawell succeeded in opening the first pharmacy in Sydney on 1 March 1820.  The business prospered, expanded and boomed, inducing his family to join him (as noted above) in 1823.  In due course Tawell became a wealthy and a free man, able to travel at will between Australia and England, which he did from 1831.  After Mary became ill they settled in Southwark, where Tawell employed a young nurse named Sarah Lawrence to look after her.  He and Sarah began a relationship which produced two children while Mary died in late 1838 following the death of their elder son, John Dawning Tawell.

In 1841 Sarah Lawrence changed her surname to Hart and went to live near Slough, receiving an allowance from Tawell.  He married Eliza Cutforth, an elegant and well-respected Quaker widow who soon produced another son, but to Tawell's frustration the Society of Friends once more frowned upon the union.  A financial crisis in Australia in 1843 added to his problems which were further exacerbated by the growing liability of Sarah's maintenance.  Tawell resolved to poison her, an enterprise in which he succeeded (at the second attempt) on New Year's Day 1845, by means of prussic acid.  Following a court case which attracted enormous attention from the media and public at the time, he was publicly hanged for Sarah's murder at Aylesbury on 28 March, 1845.  Central to the case against Tawell was the fact that a newly-installed electric telegraph system was used to warn police at Paddington of his impending arrival on the train from Slough, and the trackside wires became known as 'the cords which hung John Tawell'.

For further refernce see:

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 1, p.506-7 (A.G.Austin).

ANS Journal 1982, Sydney Grammar School Medal 1819-1824, by L.Carlisle, p.2-10.

Silver Medals, Badges and Trophies from Schools in the British Isles 1550-1850, by M.E.Grimshaw.