“ In geological circles Wollaston is famous for the medal which bears his name, and which (together with a donation fund) is annually awarded by the council of the Geological Society of London, being the result of the interest on £1000 bequeathed by Wollaston for “promoting researches concerning the mineral structure of the earth.” The first award was made in 1831. The medal is the highest honour bestowed by the society: it was originally made of palladium, but is now made of gold. ”

“ Towards the close of 1828 he felt the approach of a fatal malady—a tumour in the brain—and devoted his last days to a careful revisal of his unpublished researches and industrial processes, dictating several papers on these subjects, which were afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions. He died in London on the 22nd of December 1828.
Most of Wollaston’s original work deals more or less directly with chemical subjects, but diverges on all sides into optics, acoustics, mineralogy, astronomy, physiology, botany and even art. In chemistry he made a speciality of the platinum metals. ”

“ Platinum itself he discovered how to work on a practical scale, and he is said to have made a fortune from the secret, which, however, he disclosed in a posthumous paper (1829) ; and he was the first to detect the metals palladium (1804) and rhodium (1805) in crude platinum. ”