The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences", done within the Commonwealth of Nations.

John Dalton was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He introduced the atomic theory into chemistry. He also researched colour blindness; as a result, the umbrella term for red-green congenital colour blindness disorders is Daltonism in several languages.