The Keith Medal was a prize awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy, for a scientific paper published in the society's scientific journals, preference being given to a paper containing a discovery, either in mathematics or earth sciences.

The Medal was inaugurated in 1827 as a result of a gift from Alexander Keith of Dunnottar, the first Treasurer of the Society. It was awarded quadrennially, alternately for a paper published in: Proceedings A (Mathematics) or Transactions (Earth and Environmental Sciences). The medal bears the head of John Napier of Merchiston.

The medal is no longer awarded.^[1]

Recipients of the Keith Gold Medal

Source (1827 to 1913): Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

19th century

• 1827–29: David Brewster,^[2] on his Discovery of Two New Immiscible Fluids in the Cavities of certain Minerals
• 1829–31: David Brewster,^[2] on a New Analysis of Solar Light
• 1831–33: Thomas Graham,^[3][2] on the Law of the Diffusion of Gases
• 1833–35: James David Forbes,^[2] on the Refraction and Polarization of Heat
• 1835–37: John Scott Russell,^[4] on Hydrodynamics
• 1837–39: John Shaw,^[5] on the Development and Growth of the Salmon
• 1839–41: Not awarded^[5]
• 1841–43: James David Forbes,^[2] on Glaciers
• 1843–45: Not awarded^[5]
• 1845–47: Sir Thomas Brisbane,^[5] for the Makerstoun Observations on Magnetic Phenomena
• 1847–49: Not awarded^[5]
• 1849–51: Philip Kelland,^[4] on General Differentiation, including his more recent Communication on a process of the Differential Calculus, and its application to the solution of certain Differential Equations
• 1851–53: William John Macquorn Rankine,^[4] on the Mechanical Action of Heat
• 1853–55: Thomas Anderson,^[2] on the Crystalline Constituents of Opium, and on the Products of the Destructive Distillation of Animal Substances
• 1855–57: George Boole,^[5] on the Application of the Theory of Probabilities to Questions of the Combination of Testimonies and Judgments
• 1857–59: Not awarded^[5]
• 1859–61: John Allan Broun, on the Horizontal Force of the Earth’s Magnetism, on the Correction of the Bifilar Magnetometer, and on Terrestrial Magnetism generally
• 1861–63: William Thomson,^[4] on some Kinematical and Dynamical Theorems
• 1863–65: James David Forbes,^[2] for Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of Conduction of Heat in Iron Bars
• 1865–67: Charles Piazzi Smyth,^[4] on Recent Measures at the Great Pyramid
• 1867–69: Peter Guthrie Tait,^[4] on the Rotation of a Rigid Body about a Fixed Point
• 1869–71: James Clerk Maxwell,^[4] on Figures, Frames, and Diagrams of Forces
• 1871–73: Peter Guthrie Tait,^[4] First Approximation to a Thermo-electric Diagram
• 1873–75: Alexander Crum Brown,^[2] on the Sense of Rotation, and on the Anatomical Relations of the Semicircular Canals of the Internal Ear
• 1875–77: Matthew Forster Heddle,^[2] on the Rhombohedral Carbonates and on the Felspars of Scotland
• 1877–79: Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin,^[2] on the Application of Graphic Methods to the Determination of the Efficiency of Machinery
• 1879–81: George Chrystal,^[2] on the Differential Telephone
• 1881–83: Sir Thomas Muir,^[4] Researches into the Theory of Determinants and Continued Fractions
• 1883–85: John Aitken,^[6] on the Formation of Small Clear Spaces in Dusty Air
• 1885–87: John Young Buchanan,^[2] for a series of communications, extending over several years, on subjects connected with Ocean Circulation, Compressibility of Glass, etc.
• 1887–89: Edmund Albert Letts,^[4] for his papers on the Organic Compounds of Phosphorus
• 1889–91: Robert Traill Omond,^[4] for his contributions to Meteorological Science
• 1891–93: Sir Thomas Richard Fraser,^[2] for his papers on Strophanthus hispidus, Strophanthin, and Strophanthidin
• 1893–95: Cargill Gilston Knott,^[4] for his papers on the Strains produced by Magnetism in Iron and in Nickel
• 1895–97: Sir Thomas Muir,^[4] for his continued communications on Determinants and Allied Questions
• 1897–99: James Burgess,^[7][2] on the Definite Integral ...

20th/21st century