Thanks to regandon, he did some research and found this information
Here is part of the story behind the medal
and a link is here:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/about/hmso-history.htmThe History of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
The early years
Her Majesty’s Stationery Office was founded in 1786 - in the reign of King George III - as His Majesty’s Stationery Office. It was created as a result of the reforms of the Royal Household and Civil Service which had been advocated by the influential Whig MP, Edmund Burke.
These changes came about because of unease with the inefficient and expensive system of public administration then in existence. This was particularly apparent when the country was facing the financial burdens of the colonial war in North America and the defence of the first British Empire. Burke’s reforms of the 1780s abolished many of the corrupt and extravagant practices that had thrived with the old system of patronage, under which those with influence at Court were rewarded. Patents issued by the Crown for the supply of stationery to government departments allowed the patentee to buy goods cheaply and to sell at outrageously high prices.
So it was, that on 5 April 1786, John Mayor was appointed as the first ’Superintendant’ of a new Treasury department, His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO).
Purchasing by public contract
The newly-formed HMSO had to be seen to be above the corrupt practices of the past, so in 1806 the Treasury ordered that paper, parchment, pens and sealing wax should be bought by public and open competition. In 1812 this regulation was extended to the purchase of all forms of stationery. The lowest tender was to be accepted in every case and had to be open to public inspection.
An expanding role
In 1822 a parliamentary Select Committee on Printing and Stationery examined allegations of irregularities, which led to a Treasury review of HMSO’s operation. There were two major outcomes:
all government departments had in future to buy through HMSO;
from 1824-25, HMSO was financed by its own Vote in Parliament, instead of collecting payments from each department for goods and services supplied,- a system which was to last over 150 years.
While government forms made up the major part of HMSO’s printing work in the early years, Hansard, then an independent company, retained the selling of parliamentary publications until 1882, when HMSO was made the official publisher to both Houses of Parliament. The additional role was formalised in 1889, when Queen Victoria granted, to the Controller, Royal Letters Patent as ’printer to Her Majesty of all Acts of Parliament’. The Letters Patent appointed the Controller to hold Crown copyright. This grant and the office of the Queen’s Printer continues to the present day.
In 1889, HMSO became responsible for The London Gazette. The Gazette began in 1665 as the Oxford Gazette when the Court had retired to Oxford to escape the plague in London. Today the Gazette carries official announcements and legal notices and includes an Internet edition.
In addition to its role as parliamentary publisher, from its early days, HMSO supervised non-parliamentary government publishing, eg in 1810 the first folio volume of the Statutes of the Realm and later an ambitious reproduction of the Doomsday Book.
