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Note: The COLLYNS Medal:
The medals were instituted by Charles Collyns, Magistrate of the City of Exeter (and Mayor in the years 1802 and 1807), in 1819: I should think in honour of his brilliant young son's appointment as Headmaster of the School in 1818. I refer, of course, to the Rev. Charles H. Collyns, D.D., who was only 28 years old when he secured the position. Before going on, I might say that Charles Collyns was connected with the great house of Barings, in Exeter, and the son of the Rev. John Collyns, M.A., Rector of Mamhead.
Doubtless the father was rightly proud of his son's attainments, for he was a Double First at Oxford (Balliol College) and it is said his reputation as a classical scholar, plus possibly local influence, for I fancy Charles Collyns was a Govenor of the School, assisted his successful candidature.
How the fund for these medals was provided I am unable to say. I have examined the wills of the father (who died in 1825) and son (who died in 1862) at Somerset House, but no mention is made of a medal fund and as the medals were given six years before Mr. Charles Collyns died, we must conclude, I think, that it was by way of a deed of gift.
Be that as it may, we know that 72 pounds sterling was the original amount set aside, of which 12 pounds was spent in a die, with the predecessors of Messrs. Garton and King, in the High Street, leaving 58 pounds. The medals were valued at 15 shillings each, and I ascertained that 30 shillings was paid in 1819 and 1820, and a curious amount of tenpence for a metal medal - I cannot explain this unless Charles Collyns was of a humorist and wanted to provide a "booby" prize as well.
These medals were presented right on to the sixties, and possibly up to the year 1862, when Dr. Collyns died and it is clear that they were supplied by the Doctor, although he had resigned the Headmastership in 1836, for I see by an Exeter paper of June 1856, reference is made to "Two silver medals, founded in 1819 by the late Charles Collyns Esq., Magistrate of this City, for Latin Hexameters, and forwarded every year by the Rev. Dr. Collyns, the late respected Headmaster of the School," but I can find no trace of them for the past fifty years, and certainly they were never heard of in my time, forty years ago.
What has become of the odd medals? I know of the following holders: Mr. Charles Scott, B.A. of Gloucester has two; the Rev. F.D. Thomson, M.A. to whom I have referred in previous letters, is another holder; and Mr. F.W. Levander, F.R.A.S. gained one. It was only in April of this year (1912) that the Rev. Canon Collyns, a nephew of the Headmaster , and a holder of two medals, died at the advanced age of 84. The most curious item to record in his sketch is that a boy at present at the School is the possessor of a Collyns medal by inheritance.
The medal was won some time between 1832 and 1838 by George Tucker, who subsequently became a Solicitor in the City, and at his death in 1849 it passed into the possession of his sister, the late Mrs. Clapp of Exeter, who left it to be held by such of her descendants as were pupils at the school in rotation. As a result it went first to the late Francis Chapman Clapp, M.A. (1877-1881), but as his sons were not educated at the School, the next to succeed to its possession was Cecil Douglas Clapp, who entered the School in 1908, and it is still here. May we hope the Collyns medals may be revived and that C.D. Clapp may gain one by merit. (A Reprint from "The Exonian" of December 1912 by H. Wreford-Glanville).
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