He then gives an account of each room. The present lower library was divided into two rooms, the first for foreign newspapers, the other for books. Over these rooms was the second lecture room, which at some future period was to become the library.

It will be useful for occasional lectures, and for exhibiting new experiments, and for the meetings of the committees.

The conversation room has been furnished, and everything has been prepared for its being used as a coffee room. It is now set apart for the daily papers.

The proprietors since June had increased 16, the life subscribers 16, and annual subscribers 122. All the new works to be done and every demand would amount to 3,900l. The balance at the banks and the debts to the Institution came to 8,100l. The Institution has been completed without any debt, and the annual income is quite sufficient to defray all the expenses of keeping it up.

He ended thus:

The Royal Institution of Great Britain may therefore be considered as finished and freely established. That it may long continue to flourish is no doubt the ardent wish of those who are connected with it, and also of all those who are acquainted with the principles on which it is founded, and who know how powerfully it must contribute to the general diffusion of an active spirit of inquiry and useful improvement among all the ranks of society.

Such was Count Rumford’s favourable statement when he was about to take leave for a time, and, as it proved, for ever, of the Institution he had founded.

The contrast between this report and that which he made to the managers only one week afterwards shows that he was very suddenly made aware of the changes which his absence would occasion in the Institution.

This, his last report, was dated May 3, and it was taken into consideration by the managers the day after he left for Bavaria. He begins by saying that at the desire of the managers he has made some inquiries and taken some preparatory steps for making several new arrangements in the internal regulation of the house of the Institution.

First, of the Journals, to relieve the managers from the care and anxiety which is ever inseparably connected with the direction of business of account, of multifarious detail, and where inspection and control are difficult and sometimes impossible. It was proposed to put the publication of the Journals into the hands of Dr. Young, Mr. Davy, and Mr. Savage, on conditions which made them take the printing-office without the power of disposing of it.

Second, of the workshops of the Royal Institution. These are proposed to be put into the hands of some respectable tradesman, to be managed by him under certain regulations at his own expense and for his own benefit. Mr. Feetham, a respectable ironmonger of Oxford Street, offered to take charge of the workshops of workers in metal,[20] which is immediately under the managers’ room, and carry on at his own expense and risk the same kinds of work with the same workmen.

Charles Royce, who, in the absence of Mr. Webster, acts as an assistant of the professor and chemical lecturer, is ready to engage to carry on the business of the model-makers’ workshops at the house of the Institution on his own account, and at his own private expense and risk, promising to furnish at fair prices to all proprietors and subscribers such models as they may order. He will likewise continue to assist Dr. Young and Mr. Davy at their public lectures.

If these arrangements are carried out, the office of Steward of the House and Master of the Workshops, held by Mr. M‘Cullock, might be suppressed. Mr. Royce will only require a boy to clean the laboratory.

Of the coffee room and dining room. It has been proposed to give the management of these to some individual who shall agree to furnish the proprietors and subscribers with refreshments at his own account and risk.

He ended his dictatorship with these abdicating words:

All the different subjects mentioned in this report remain for future discussion among the managers.

Many proofs exist that Count Rumford took little counsel from others in founding the Royal Institution.

In the works of Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcot) (vol. v. p. 458) there is an epistle to Count Rumford containing these lines and this note:

In the ‘Monthly Magazine, or British Register’ for May 1815, in a memoir of Count Rumford, speaking of his connexion with the Royal Institution, and of the quarrels which arose among the managers, this passage occurs:

We feel it proper to state that the Count assumed the character of absolute controller, as well as the projector, of this establishment, and conducted himself with a degree of hauteur which disgusted its patrons, and almost broke the heart of our amiable friend and its first professor, Dr. Garnett.

And in Dr. Thomas Thompson’s ‘Annals of Philosophy’ for April 1815 a biographical account of Count Rumford is given, and the following inaccurate statement is made:

I pass over his quarrel with the managers of the Royal Institution, about the nature of which I am not fully informed, though I suppose it was an attempt on the part of the Count to retain in his own hands the entire management of that Institution. Be that as it may, the result of the dispute induced him to leave London, to which he never again returned.

Differences with the managers had nothing to do with Count Rumford’s departure from London. The immediate cause is seen in his letter to his daughter from Munich on October 2, 1801. He had promised the new Elector to return as soon as the Royal Institution was in order. Dr. Young states that the superiority of the climate of France was partly, if not entirely, the cause of his leaving England. Probably the influence of Madame Lavoisier had its full effect.

Count Rumford left England for Munich on May 9. It is quite certain that when he left he intended to return to his Institution and his house, to his housekeeper and his servants in Brompton Row. It is equally certain that he no longer was on terms of intimacy with Mr. Bernard, who was still a visitor of the Institution, and that he kept up no correspondence during his absence with the other managers regarding his Institution except with Sir Joseph Banks. Before he had left England one month those objects which he had considered likely to bear the best fruits at the Institution were marked for destruction, and they gradually withered away.

The state of the funds was the cause of the immediate change. The bills due were 3,900l. the balance at the bankers’ was 3,180l. The arrears came to 4,960l. 10s., but these were chiefly bad debts.

In 1799 the income was 6,379l.; in 1800, 11,047l.; in 1801, 3,474l.; whilst in 1802 it was only 2,999l. Moreover the expenditure was increasing.

Meeting after meeting was held in May 1802 to make arrangements for reducing the expenditure in the workshops and printing-office. In June the resolution of Count Rumford to increase the rates of subscription to be paid by life and annual subscribers was unanimously rescinded.

In July Dr. Young, when applying for leave of absence, had to ask for the balance of his salary, and Mr. Davy at the same time requests that he may be allowed a part of his salary.

In the autumn the managers seem from the Minutes to have held only two meetings between July 5 and December 6.

But on December 20 Mr. Bernard, visitor, Lord Kinnaird, treasurer, and Mr. Auriol, secretary, were requested by the managers to take into consideration the state of the Institution, and to report their opinion upon such measures and regulations as may appear to them eligible to be adopted for reducing the expenses and increasing the benefit of the Institution.

An accident, as it may be called, this year led the thoughts of Davy to agricultural chemistry, and ultimately gave him a reputation in the country resembling that which Liebig afterwards obtained.

During the summer it was resolved that the Board of Agriculture should be allowed the use of the lecture room for a course of lectures on the Application of Chemistry to Agriculture, provided the subscribers and the proprietors of the Institution were allowed admission; and ‘if the professors of the Institution can be of any service in assisting or forwarding the wishes of the Board of Agriculture in giving these lectures, the managers have no objection to their being employed.’ The following year Davy gave in consequence his first course on Agriculture.

In 1803 the existence of the Royal Institution was in peril. This is apparent from a letter written by Sir John Hippesley, in 1820, to the President of the Board of Agriculture suggesting an amalgamation of the two societies. He said: ‘I recollect with pain that when I was of the Committee of Managers in the year 1803 (scarcely three years after the date of the charter) our capital was exhausted and the corporation was 3,000l. in debt, insomuch that a proposal was then made at the board to shut up the house of the Institution and to bring all the effects to a sale for a discharge of its debts. Fortunately a better determination prevailed. A liberal subscription among the members immediately took place. The debt was paid off and near 3,000l. was invested for a time in the public funds. I say for a time, as unfortunately the Institution since that period has not been exempted from the pressure of the general difficulties of the times, and has had to struggle with their severity while its efforts nevertheless have not relaxed in fulfilling the great objects of its establishment. To your Lordship I need not insist upon the extent of these efforts nor the credit due to the general management as well as to the eminent talents and exertions of the able professors and lecturers who have so justly maintained the high scientific celebrity of the Institution in every part of Europe.’

On January 17 Lord Kinnaird, Mr. Bernard, and Mr. Auriol made their first report.

They proposed to continue the existing scientific establishment alone; to reduce the workmen, the printers, and the domestics; and to appoint a sub-committee to watch the expenditure.

Two thousand pounds were wanted for immediate payment of bills, and the managers, visitors, treasurer, and secretary subscribed 100l. each, to be repaid to them without interest.

The committee asked for more time in February to prepare the accounts of the Institution.

Early in March an accountant was called in ‘to arrange the accounts from the first.’

The result of this investigation is best seen in a report which was drawn up by Mr. Bernard, and which was presented by the visitors to the proprietors, May 2, 1803.

Mr. Bernard reviewed all the expenditure from the first, beginning with the purchase of the house (and the two adjoining houses held under it) for 4,850l. For the charter, 583l. For arms, 101l. For lecture room, repository, laboratory, and workshop, 5,227l., which was 1,800l. less than was expected, and ‘it has been completed, as the visitors conceive, in a manner and with a degree of attention and economy very creditable to those who undertook the care and direction of it.’[21]... 1,181l. was paid for fitting up and furnishing the workshops and for experiments incidental to the use of them. ‘It is to be observed that a part of this expense ought regularly to be charged to the apparatus. Some loss, however, will probably be incurred upon this article of expenditure, as that part of the arrangement seems to be in a great measure given up. The loss, however, it is hoped, will be inconsiderable, as by a plan recently brought forward by a very scientific member of the Committee of Managers (Mr. Hatchett), it is proposed to form for the use of proprietors, and for the benefit of the Institution, in these and the adjoining rooms, the establishment of a very extensive and useful laboratory, upon a scale of magnitude and with a degree of advantage that are not likely to be equalled in any part of his Majesty’s dominions.’

After reviewing the domestic expenditure and the expenditure of the invested principal Mr. Bernard said:

Upon the whole the visitors have the pleasure of stating to the annual meeting that, in the examination of the expenditure incurred in a concern of so great magnitude, under some peculiar circumstances and difficulties and during a period of near four years, they have found the whole of the accounts correctly stated, verified, and balanced except as to a small deficit of 47l. 14s. 10½d. entered as such by mistake, the vouchers for which having been actually produced; and they conceive that there is nothing that merits censure and much that deserves approbation.

With regard to the present state and progress of the Institution he said:

In the supply of useful models, one of its original and most important objects, very little advance is yet made. The lectures and public experiments connected with them will be considerably augmented in the coming season. The new plan for the laboratory promises to increase the scope and utility of it, and at the same time very much to diminish, if not eventually provide for, the expense of that part of the Institution. The library and proposed collection of books of reference will form a library establishment honourable to the British nation, favourable to science, advantageous to the pursuits of scientific men, and very conducive to the increase of the funds and of the utility, prosperity, and permanency of the Institution.

He thus ended his report:

The fabric of the Royal Institution is now completed by the efforts of individuals.... The attempt has been as arduous as the object has been great and important—not less than that of giving fashion to science and of forming a centre of philosophical and literary attraction, for supplying instruction to the young, and rational amusement to mature life, with essential advantages to the public and increase of resources to the country by new discoveries and improvements in the arts and manufactures.

Early in January the managers resolved that Dr. Young and Mr. Davy should give one hundred lectures in the ensuing season, to begin on October 26.

On January 21 Dr. Young proposed to the managers a preface to the second volume of the Journal of the Institution. It was referred to the Select Committee, who advised that at the present period, when, on account of the situation of the finances and expenses of the Institution, a considerable alteration is become necessary in their arrangements, any publication of the kind proposed by Dr. Young had better be deferred for the present. This preface, written by Dr. Young, never was published, and, as it gives a good view of the Institution as it was left by Rumford, it is of interest as a record of the past.

Plan and Regulations of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Albemarle Street, written by Dr. Thomas Young.

The professed object of the Royal Institution is the diffusion of useful knowledge, derived from science, and applicable to the purposes of life.

The means proposed for attaining this end are, first, an annual delivery of lectures on the various branches of natural philosophy and chemistry, familiar enough to be intelligible to moderate capacities, and extensive enough to comprehend the most important applications of theory to practice; secondly, the furnishing of a spacious repository with models of such machines, instruments, and utensils as, after sufficient experimental examination, can with confidence be recommended for introduction into common use; thirdly, the establishment of a chemical laboratory, with proper apparatus and materials to be employed in such investigations as are of the greatest practical utility; fourthly, the provision of reading rooms, supplied as well with periodical publications as with works of acknowledged merit, particularly relative to the sciences and the arts; and, lastly, the extension of the benefits derived from the Institution, by publishing from time to time, in its Journals, such improvements as may either have been made by its means, or may have been otherwise suggested by individuals in foreign countries or in our own.

These objects are indeed of too great magnitude to be completely obtained at once; but a considerable progress has already been made in the pursuit of them, and a continuance of the public support alone is required for rendering the Royal Institution as well a natural ornament as a private accommodation.

The lectures are already established on an unprecedented scale, in the order of the systematic compendiums which have been published; and weekly notice is given to the subscribers of the subjects of each lecture. The laboratory has been provided with an ample apparatus; and a number of original experiments have already been made in it, which are immediately connected with the useful arts. The reading rooms are furnished with all new works of importance, both foreign and domestic, which relate to the arts and sciences, as well as with newspapers and all other periodical publications; and they are open daily, from nine in the morning till midnight. A volume of the Journals is completed, and may serve as a specimen of what is to be expected from them when their editors shall be more at leisure to prepare materials for them. But a more complete collection of models and of apparatus can only be obtained by degrees, and in proportion as the funds of the Institution are enabled to support the expense.

The affairs of the Institution are directed by a president and nine managers, elected out of the proprietors at large. Their meetings are usually the first Monday in every month, or oftener.

The professors engage to deliver, annually, not less than fifty lectures each, on natural philosophy and the mechanical arts; and on chemistry, and the chemical arts respectively; to direct and superintend, with the approbation of the managers, the construction of apparatus necessary for their lectures, and of other models and experimental machines proper to be placed in the repository; to collect such information as is requisite for these purposes; and to provide jointly sufficient matter for the publication of the Journals. The Superintendent of the House is charged with the regulation of its internal economy; and the Director of the Laboratory is empowered to make such experiments in it as he may judge likely to promote the views of the Institution.

The clerk is required to attend in the house in general from nine to five, and on the evenings when lectures are delivered from seven to nine; but in particular to be never absent between twelve and four; to be ready every day at one o’clock, to show the various parts of the house to all persons who are entitled to admission; to inspect and arrange the library, to receive payment of subscriptions, to deliver tickets, and to keep all the accounts, under the direction of the managers and of the Superintendent of the House.

The mathematical instrument maker, and other workmen in the immediate service of the Institution, are employed in the construction and repair of apparatus for the lectures and for the repository. The Superintendent of the Workshops assists also in the experiments exhibited by the professors in their lectures, and has the charge of the preparation of all necessary apparatus.

Besides these officers, and the domestic servants of the house, six workmen are at present constantly employed in various departments of the Institution.

Such persons as are desirous of becoming proprietors of the Royal Institution, or subscribers for life, or for any number of years, must be nominated by one of the managers, at a meeting prior to that in which they are elected; but in cases of emergency they may receive temporary tickets of admission as soon as they are nominated, paying their subscriptions, to be returned in case of non-election.

A proprietor pays at present 80 guineas. He receives two transferable tickets of admission to the lectures and to the house in general; but such tickets do not admit the bearer to the reading rooms, unless they have been personally transferred to him, with the consent of the managers, for a time not less than a year.

Subscribers for life pay 20 guineas, and annual subscribers 3 guineas a year. Their tickets admit the possessors to all parts of the house, but they are not transferable.

Ladies who are desirous of subscribing must be recommended by one of the ladies holding books for the purpose. For personal admission to the lectures each lady pays a guinea for the season, but her ticket is not transferable, except among daughters of the same family subscribing with their mother. Ladies subscribing three guineas are entitled to introduce to each lecture any one lady of their acquaintance.

All subscriptions must be paid, either to the clerk or to one of the bankers of the Institution, upon or before the receipt of a ticket of admission; and no annual subscriber can be admitted after the expiration of a former year before the payment of his subscription for the succeeding one.

The lectures are delivered daily at two o’clock, excepting Tuesdays and Fridays, when they are at eight in the evening.

The Journals are usually published every month or oftener, in numbers of two sheets or more; they are sold at the price of a shilling each at the house of the Institution and by the principal booksellers, and they are regularly sent to the houses of all those who wish to be considered as subscribers to them.

Ladies empowered to recommend subscribers:

Duchess of Devonshire,	Piccadilly.
Countess of Sutherland,	Arlington Street.
Countess Spencer,	St. James’s Place.
Countess of Bessborough,	Cavendish Square.
Viscountess Palmerston,	Hanover Square.
Hon. Mrs. Barrington,	Cavendish Square.
Lady Campbell,	Wimpole Street.
Mrs. Sullivan,	Grafton Street.
Mrs. Bernard,	At the Foundling.
Mrs. Crewe,	Lower Grosvenor Street.

Bankers of the Royal Institution:

• Messrs. Down, Thornton, Free, and Cornwall, Bartholomew Lane.
• Messrs. Herries, Farquhar, and Co., St. James’s Street.
• Messrs. Hoare, Fleet Street.
• Messrs. Ladbrook and Co., Bank Buildings.
• Messrs. Pybus, Call, Grant and Hale, Bond Street.
• Messrs. Ransom, Morland, and Co., Pall Mall.

The second volume of the Journals never was published. Three sheets only were printed, chiefly containing papers by Young and a few extracts by Davy, and then the Journals of the Institution ceased, and were not revived until 1830, when they were edited for a year and a half by Professor Brande.

On April 21 Dr. Young wrote to the managers a letter, which is lost. On the 26th the managers answered that ‘they cannot consent to grant him the increase of salary which he desires for the next year, and with respect to the other situations (Librarian and Keeper of the Library of Reference) which he mentions, as they are appointments which do not at present exist, the managers cannot now say anything regarding them.’ This resolution was not communicated to Dr. Young until June 6, and he then gave notice of his wish to resign his appointment. He was asked whether it would be agreeable to him to deliver twenty lectures in the next season, and what would be his subject and his terms. At the next meeting it was resolved that the balance of two years’ complete salary should be paid to Dr. Young, and that his engagement with the Institution should terminate from that time, and that, in consideration of his services, he should be proposed to the next meeting to be admitted gratuitously to the privileges of subscribers for life.

In 1804 Dr. Young, in his reply to the articles of Lord Brougham in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ gave the following account of his engagement and of its termination:

The reviewer has thought proper to unite, in several instances, with his invectives against me some ridicule of the objects of the Royal Institution of Great Britain—an Institution in which its managers have studied to concentrate all that is useful in science or elegant in literature. This connexion appears to him to add so much weight to his arguments that he has chosen, without further provocation, to insinuate its existence more than a year after it has been dissolved. I accepted the appointment of Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution as an occupation which would fill up agreeably and advantageously such leisure hours as a young practitioner of physic must expect to be left free from professional cares. I was led to hope that I should be able to impress an audience, formed of the most respectable inhabitants of the metropolis, with such a partiality as the moderately well-informed are inclined to entertain for those who appear to know even a little more than themselves of matters of science. While I held the situation I wished to make my lectures as intelligible as the nature of the subjects permitted; but I must confess that it was not my ambition to render them a substitute for those of any superficial experimenter that was in the habit of delivering courses of natural philosophy for the amusement of boarding schools. Whatever may have been the imperfections of my lectures, it cannot be asserted, except perhaps in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ that they were fit for audiences of ladies of fashion only. After fulfilling for two years the duties of the professorship, I found them so incompatible with the pursuits of a practical physician that, in compliance with the advice of my friends, I gave notice of my wish to resign the office.[22]

In March the Select Committee made their second report.

It recommended the supply and completion of the library, and the formation of an additional collection of books for the reference of scientific men, as one of the measures most likely to give permanency and stability to the Royal Institution.

On March 21 Mr. Bernard laid before a meeting of the managers and visitors a plan for these libraries which he had prepared. By April 4 he had obtained subscriptions to the amount of 2,828l., and at a meeting of the subscribers they appointed a select committee to consider and report upon the arrangements proper to be made. On April 14 another general meeting of subscribers to the library and collection of reference decided on an address to the proprietors and subscribers to the Royal Institution. Further resolutions were adopted on April 20 and on April 29, the subscriptions having reached 3,798l. Regulations were drawn up, and ultimately bye-laws regarding the library and collection of books of reference were made on May 2. The total subscriptions to February 6, 1806, came to 5,395l. 10s.

This library and collection was an institution within an institution. It had its chief patron, chairman, deputy chairman, treasurer, secretary, and other patrons, its general committee and sub-committees, its accounts, its bankers. Its great object, in addition to the immediate completion of the library, was ‘the formation of an extended collection of books of reference, comprehending not only the best publications in practical science, but a library of general and authentic history, political economy, finances, topography, and other departments of knowledge that may be useful to individuals of the United Kingdom, and also to scientific persons of other nations.’

This was formed in the room which is now the upper library. Before the theatre was built it had been the lecture room.

In June Mr. Harris, who had been employed at Mr. Egerton’s, the bookseller in Whitehall, was engaged to correct and arrange the library, and to buy the London Library, in Hatton Garden, if he thought it was desirable to do so. It was found to be in a very bad state and was declined.

On July 27, 1803, at the meeting of the general committee of the patrons of the library and collection of reference of the Royal Institution, a letter was read from Mr. Dibden to Mr. Bernard, applying for the situation of principal librarian of the Royal Institution.

Being a married man with a young family, and having a particular partiality to the study of bibliography, such a situation would be an eligible one and agreeable to my general habits and pursuits.

He enclosed a testimonial from Dr. Jenner.

It was resolved that Mr. Dibden be informed ‘that it is not intended to proceed to the choice of a librarian until after Christmas next.’

At the end of April Mr. Hatchett laid before the managers a report on the chemical department of the Institution. He said:

Chemistry was always a primary object of the Institution. A laboratory was therefore erected at an early period, and was furnished with such apparatus as was immediately requisite; but, as the Institution was then in a nascent state, great attention was paid to economy in the chemical department, and although much was in reality wanted to render the laboratory complete, yet nothing more was expended on this part than was absolutely necessary to the immediate demands of the lectures delivered in the Institution. On this account the laboratory has remained in a state inferior to that which might justly be expected in such a liberal and splendid establishment; but, as some extension may now be expected in a department so instructive, so interesting, and so eminently useful, the following intended regulations are submitted to the consideration of the Committee of Managers: 1st. That the workshop lately occupied by Mr. Feetham shall in future be annexed to the laboratory. 2nd. The forge to be adapted to chemical purposes. 3rd. An air-furnace and reverberatory furnace to be built. 4th. Presses and shelves to be added to contain vessels and chemical preparations.

This laboratory will be equal, or indeed superior, to any in this country, and probably to any on the Continent. Such a laboratory, therefore, will accord with the respectability and liberal views of this Institution, which, on the other hand, may henceforward regard this part of its establishment not only as very conducive to its honour, but as likely to produce real and substantial advantages. But to procure these some further regulations appear necessary: 1. Crude materials to prepare pure products should be bought. 2. The Professor shall be assisted by a person well versed in practical chemistry, who shall be expressly engaged to attend the laboratory and assist in the chemical lectures. 3. Operations in the laboratory should be taught. The Institution will derive therefrom honour and profit, and, as far as chemistry is concerned, that one of its chief purposes will be accomplished—the diffusion of knowledge and the application of science to the improvement of arts and manufactures.

On May 2 it was resolved ‘that a Committee of Science should be appointed from among the managers to regulate the lectures and public experiments; to direct the publication of the Journals; and to report as to any experiments, or additions to apparatus, or models.’ It was to meet weekly and be appointed monthly. Spencer, Banks, Cavendish, Hatchett, Symonds, formed the first committee.

On May 16 the managers resolved ‘that the Committee of Science should carry out improvements in the laboratory, that the workshops should be thrown into the laboratory and fitted up as a lecture room for 120 persons.’ For nearly sixty years this laboratory theatre remained unchanged.

Other traces of the activity of this Committee of Science are to be found. On May 27 Sir Joseph Banks, in the name of the Committee of Science of the Royal Institution, wrote to the Board of Agriculture:

The Committee do not expect in agricultural analysis the same degree of precise accuracy as is necessary in that intended to illustrate philosophical experiments; it will be enough for them if the component parts of substances and their respective proportions to each other are marked with sufficient precision to demonstrate the probable effects on vegetables.

The Committee are aware that at present the science of agricultural chemistry is in its infancy, and that till it has been more matured each analysis will take up a considerable portion of time; they trust, however, that it will not be long before Mr. Davy himself, or some one named by him and acting under his superintendence, will undertake the business of analysing soils and manures for individuals at a moderate fixed price for each substance that shall be brought to them.

The Royal Institution wish to have Mr. Davy’s lectures repeated at their house, and have desired me to ask whether the Board of Agriculture have any objection to a measure which appears to them likely to extend still further.

---

Having been requested to suggest what I think a proper recompense to Mr. Davy on account of his six lectures delivered at the Board, and also a plan for securing his services in future to the Board of Agriculture, I beg leave to propose that sixty guineas be given by the Board to Mr. Davy as a remuneration for his six lectures, being at the rate of ten guineas for each lecture, and that the office of Professor of Chemical Agriculture to the Board, with a salary of 100l. a year, be offered to his acceptance; the duty of his professorship to consist of reading lectures in the spring at such time as shall be fixed by the Board, on the application of chemistry to the improvement of the art of agriculture, and in making an analysis of such substances as shall be put into his hands by the Committee, in case he is of opinion that the result of such analysis is likely to throw light on the theory and practice of that most useful art.

This Committee of Science also, as early as July 18, proposed that in the ensuing session Mr. Dalton should be engaged to lecture.

The form which the Institution was at this time about to take is well seen in the joint report of the committees of science and accounts on the plan of the lectures and experiments and other proposed arrangements for the ensuing year. This was made on November 28, 1803; the reporters were Sir Joseph Banks, Henry Cavendish, Sir J. Hippesley, Mr. Bernard, Mr. Sullivan.

They said:

With regard to the lectures on Natural Philosophy, it is presumed that the subjects may be advantageously arranged in the three distinct courses. The first should be a complete course of experimental philosophy; the second should relate to practical mechanics; and the third should be on optics and astronomy.

Abstruseness should in all cases be avoided, the processes of the arts should be particularly described, and the operations should be on such a scale as to instruct by their applications and to interest and amuse by the distinctness and brilliancy of their appearance.

The lectures on Chemistry, it is supposed, may be included in two courses. The first would relate to the chemistry of natural history and the chemical economy of nature, and the second to theoretical and practical chemistry. From the progression of this branch of knowledge it will be easy to develope in both these courses many new objects, and it is supposed that they may at once be rendered useful and made to excite attention and gratify curiosity.

It would be very advantageous to institute a particular and distinct series of public experimental operations, showing such new facts in elementary and natural philosophy as are connected with splendid and curious phenomena or highly useful applications.

During the season it was proposed that there should be one hundred lectures and twenty public experiments—about four lectures weekly.

For affording more practical and minute information concerning the objects of science, first, in relation to mechanical sciences and arts, the models of useful inventions should be increased and made more available; second, in relation to chemistry, the examination of the private experimental processes performed in the laboratory might be given as private instruction, for which those who thought proper to attend should make some annual contribution for defraying the extra expense, as it would be impossible to admit all the proprietors and subscribers.

With the reduction of expenses and the strict economy that has taken place in the establishment, it is submitted to the managers that it will not be necessary to increase at present the annual subscription.

The Committee concludes the report with observations on the progress which has been recently made and is now making in the Institution. After mentioning the lectures and the apparatus for the lectures, it is said the laboratory for experimental processes has been enlarged by the addition of the former workroom, and has been improved by many new arrangements, and provision has been made in it for preparing the different reagents and tests employed in philosophical chemistry and for carrying on various new and interesting researches.

The foundation of a mineralogical collection has been laid by the exertions of Mr. Professor Davy. For the purpose of extending it one proprietor has offered 100l., and others promised to give minerals. A collection of fossils was also made.

The reading library is now completed. The room for the collection of reference, fitted up for 10,000 volumes, some part of which are already purchased. It was proposed to open it to the proprietors and subscribers early in the ensuing season. The funds subscribed amounted to 4,368l. 15s. As this would not be sufficient to purchase the whole of the desired collection, it was hoped that other proprietors and subscribers ‘would enjoy the pleasure of adding their contributions.’

On November 24 Mr. Dalton wrote to Mr. Savage, the clerk:

Respected Friend,—As it will not be convenient to me to be in town before the 17th or 18th of next month, I should be glad to know previously whether my accommodation as to board and lodging would be in the Institution; if not, whether you know of any place in the vicinity where the same would probably be procured. It will be necessary for me to spend a considerable portion of time to make myself acquainted with the structure and use of some of the apparatus, and therefore I am the more solicitous on the above heads. Pray, what is the usual duration of a lecture—one or two hours? An immediate reply to these inquiries will much oblige,

Yours respectfully,
J. Dalton.

Apartments were ordered by the managers to be prepared in the house for Mr. Dalton before December 17.

On Monday, December 22, at two, he gave the introduction to a course of four lectures on Mechanics and Physics. In this lecture he dwelt on the objects of natural philosophy, division of the science, utility of the study, plan of the lectures. The second lecture was on Monday, 26, at eight P.M., on the Properties of Matter; extension, impenetrability, divisibility, inertia, various species of attraction and repulsion, motion, forces, composition of forces, collision, pendulums. The third lecture was on Wednesday, 28, at two. Projectiles; resistance of the air, mechanic powers, strength of timber. The fourth on Thursday, at two. Pneumatics; nature of electric fluids, the atmosphere, air-pump, spring and weight of the air proved by experiments, barometer. The last lecture was given on Saturday, 31, at eight. This was followed by other courses, making altogether twenty lectures.

After his return to Manchester Dalton wrote to his brother, February 1, 1804:

Dear Brother,—I have the satisfaction to inform thee that I returned safe from my London journey last seventh day, having been absent six weeks. It has on many accounts been an interesting vocation to me, though a very laborious one. I went in a great measure unprepared, not knowing the nature and manner of the lectures at the Institution nor the apparatus. My first was on Thursday, December 22, which was introductory, being entirely written, giving an account of what was intended to be done; and on natural philosophy in general. All lectures were to be one hour each, or as nearly as might be. The number attending were from one to three hundred of both sexes, usually more than half men. I was agreeably disappointed to find so learned and attentive an audience, though many of them of rank. It required great labour on my part to get acquainted with the apparatus and to draw up the order of experiments and repeat them in the intervals between the lectures, though I had one pretty expert to assist me. We had the good fortune, however, never to fail in any experiment, though I was once so ill prepared as to beg the indulgence of the audience as to part of the lecture, which they most handsomely and immediately granted me by a general plaudit. The scientific part of the audience was wonderfully taken with some of my original notions relative to heat, the gases &c., some of which had not before been published. Had my hearers been generally of the description I had apprehended, the most interesting lectures I had to give would have been the least relished; but, as it happened, the expectation formed had drawn several gentlemen of first-rate talents together, and my eighteenth, on Heat and the Laws of Expansion, &c., was received with the greatest applause; with very few experiments. The one that followed was on Mixed Elastic Fluids, in which I had an opportunity of developing my ideas, that have already been published on the subject, more fully. The doctrine has, as I apprehended it would, excited the attention of philosophers throughout Europe. Two journals in the German language came into the Royal Institution whilst I was there from Saxony, both of which were about half filled with translations from the papers I have written on this subject and comments upon them.

Dr. Ainslie was occasionally one of my audience, and his sons constantly. He came up at the concluding lecture, expressed his high satisfaction, and he believed it was the same sentiment with all or most of the audience.

I saw my successor, William Allen, fairly launched. He gave his first lecture on Tuesday, preceding my conclusion. I was an auditor in this case—the first time—and had an opportunity of surveying the audience. Amongst others of distinction the Bishop of Durham was present. In lecturing on optics I got six ribbands—blue, pink, lilac, red, green, and brown—which matched very well, and told the various audience so. I do not know whether they generally believed me to be serious, but one gentlemen came up immediately after and told me he perfectly agreed with me. He had not remarked the difference by candle light.

Throughout the year 1803 scarcely a trace of Count Rumford’s name can be found in the records of the Institution. On January 24, when writing from Munich to the clerk, Mr. Savage, about his house in Brompton Row, he only begs his compliments to Dr. Young and to Mr. Davy, and on November 11, the clerk having asked him about an account relating to the Institution, he wrote from Paris:

I assure you that I have not the smallest recollection of having received from Mr. Hunter, the solicitor of the Institution, the account you mention in your letter of the 7th ult.; and had I in fact received it, I should most undoubtedly have laid it before the managers of the Institution. I can imagine no reason which could have induced me to keep it back; and, as all the affairs of the Institution in my hands were kept with the utmost care and regularity, as you can testify, it is not likely that I should have mislaid and forgotten it. This is all I can say on the subject, and I hope and trust that this declaration will be satisfactory to the managers of the Royal Institution and to Mr. Hunter.

I expect to be in England in the course of the winter.

Gradually the ‘usefulness of science to the poorer classes and to the common purposes of life’ ceased to be the prime object of the Institution. The school for mechanics, the workshops, and the models, the kitchens and the Journals, died away; and the laboratory, the lectures, and the library became the life of the new Institution, and its object became ‘the diffusion of knowledge and the application of science to the improvement of arts and manufactures.’

The most memorable scientific incident in the history of the Rumford Institution was its relationship with Dr. Thomas Young. His lectures on physics must even now be held to rank as the greatest work in the literature of the Institution. As Professor and Superintendent of the House he had no great success; and he had no great influence on its fortunes; but by his genius he anticipated the progress of science, and his reputation has risen until it now ranks with that of Davy and Faraday.

A short sketch of his life will bring this period of the history of the Institution to a close.

Thomas Young was born in Somersetshire on June 13, 1773. Both his parents were Quakers, and to their tenets he was accustomed to attribute his resolution to effect any object on which he was engaged. This determination he brought to bear on all he did, and by this he educated himself almost from infancy ‘with little comparative assistance or direction from others.’

His earliest years were passed with a grandfather, a merchant at Minehead, who had some classical taste. He encouraged his precocious grandchild and often repeated to him that—