Description
GREAT BRITAIN George III, Preserved from Assassination, 1800, 48mm copper medal 54.5 grams by C.H. Küchler, (Pollard 23(i); BHM 483, Eimer 916)
Obverse: armoured and draped bust left, GEORGIUS III. D: G. MAGN. BRIT. ET HIB. REX
Reverse: A burning altar, inscribed D.O.M; , Eye of Providence PERSPICIT ET PROTEGIT / A SICARIO SERVATUS MAI. XV. MDCCC,
On May 15th 1800 the King visited the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in the evening with the Queen and other members of the royal family.
Michael Kelly, the musical director of the theatre at the time recorded:
When the arrival of the King was announced, the band, as usual, played 'God save the King'. I was standing at the stage-door, opposite the royal box, to see His Majesty. The moment he entered the box, a man in the pit, next the orchestra, on the right hand, stood up on the bench, and discharged a pistol at our august Monarch, as he came to the front of the box.
Never shall I forget His Majesty’s coolness - the whole audience was in an uproar. The King, on hearing the report of the pistol, retired a pace or two, stopped, and stood firmly for an instant; then came forward to the very front of the box, put his opera-glass to his eye, and looked round the house, without the smallest appearance of alarm or discomposure.
The culprit is secured
The orchestral performers seized the perpetrator - an ex-soldier named James Hadfield who was later judged insane - and dragged him into the music room under the stage, where he was examined by the Duke of York; Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the theatre’s manager; and Sir William Addington, a Bow Street magistrate. The audience demanded that Hadfield should be brought on the stage, but Kelly succeeded in calming them with the assurance that he was in safe custody and that, if he were brought forward, he might have the chance to escape.
Conrad Heinrich Küchler was born in Flanders around 1740. He first came to England in March 1793, where he was employed as an engraver at the Soho Mint, owned by the notable manufacturer Matthew Boulton. He was Boulton's sole artist for designing and die-cutting, and produced the designs for various coins, medals and tokens, including the copper "cartwheel" pennies and twopences, and medals depicting the Battle of Trafalgar, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He designed at least three of the obverse portraits for the long reign of George III. He later left the Mint, but continued to be employed by Boulton's firm in London until his death. Küchler died in Handsworth in 1810, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's
