Chapter IV · THE PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO THE RESIGNATION OF PROFESSOR YOUNG. 1801 to 1803. WITH THE LIFE OF DR. THOMAS YOUNG. 1773 to 1829.

In 1801 Count Rumford continued to carry out his plans at the Institution. In February he engaged Mr. Humphry Davy as Assistant Lecturer on Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals. On March 11 Davy arrived at the Institution and took possession of his situation, and in April he began to lecture.

In this month the managers decided to build five new bed-rooms, forming the south attics, equalising the height of the house.

Sir John Hippesley declined to continue the treasurership. He drew up the following abstract of accounts from the commencement to April 30 of this year: Receipts, 19,257l. 8s.; Expenditure, 12,601l. 2s. 1d.; Consols, costing 4,471l. 5s.; Balance at Banker’s, 2,185l. 0s. 11d.; Debts due, 4,400l.: making a disposable sum of between 10,000l. and 11,000l. ‘Now, as all bills are paid, there are sufficient grounds to hope that the managers will be able not only to finish all the new works, but also to furnish the different apartments and workshops, and complete the arrangement of the establishment in all its details, without incurring any permanent debt, or calling upon the subscribers for any part of the 7,000l. which was generously offered for defraying the expense of the new buildings.’ Lord Kinnaird was elected treasurer.

In May Count Rumford reported that, ‘as a Master of the Workshops will soon be wanted, he had taken considerable pains to find out some person qualified for that office, and he had found a sober, steady, single, mathematical instrument maker, to whom he proposed to give 80l. a year and a room in the house.’

Sir Joseph Banks recommended Mr. Böekman, a German chemist, to be engaged in the laboratory at 50l. a year and a room in the house.

On May 25 Count Rumford laid before the managers his report on the progress, present state, and probable future prosperity and utility of the Institution. This was ordered to be printed in the Journals of the Institution, and this report, with a paper by Count Rumford—‘Observations Relative to the Means of Increasing the Quantities of Heat Obtained in the Combustion of Fuel’—forms the second number of the Journals edited by Rumford alone.

In this paper a picture is seen of the Institution as Rumford wished it to be. Except when prevented by illness and care for his health, he had worked night and day with all his energy to make his prospectus of February 1799 a realised fact. After twenty-eight months the idea was carried out. Rumford’s Institution was formed. He gives a long account of all he had done and of all he intended to do. Hence this report is a record of his mind as well as a record of the Institution.

He dismisses the professors, and lectures, and lecture rooms with four lines. He dwells at more length on the spacious and complete chemical laboratory, furnished for carrying on upon a large scale all the various processes of practical chemistry and chemical analysis and for making new and interesting experiments. He speaks of a director of the laboratory, a chemical operator, and an assistant in the laboratory (a very ingenious German chemist), who will devote his whole time to the business of it. Nearly a page is given to the workshops of the Institution, ‘where models of new and useful inventions will be constructed and sold at reasonable prices to professors and subscribers.’ ‘These are quite finished, and are now furnished with the most complete set of tools that can be procured.’

He speaks of the Master of the Workshops, who will take care of the philosophical apparatus and direct the workmen, and says he will likewise superintend and instruct all such ingenious and well-behaved young men as may, at the recommendation of the professors, be admitted into the workshops of the Institution to receive instruction and to complete their education in any one or more of the mechanic arts. The following workmen, he says, are already engaged for the workshops of the Institution, viz.—

A mathematical instrument maker, a model maker, a cabinet maker, a carpenter, a worker in brass and copper, a tin-plate worker, and an iron-plate worker. To these will soon be added bricklayers and stonemasons, who will be instructed and enabled to instruct others in setting new-invented grates, roasters, ovens, boilers, &c.

A complete kitchen for a small family has been put up for examination in the housekeeper’s room. The principal kitchen will be begun in a few weeks. It will contain roasters, ovens, boilers, steamers on the newest and most improved construction, and will be kept in daily use. In order that the proprietors and inventors may be enabled to judge from actual experiment of the merit of any new-method of cooking, or any new dish that may be proposed, a dining room has been built, and will soon be ready for use, at the house of the Institution, in which the managers will occasionally order experimental dinners, to which the proprietors and subscribers will be invited, in as far as the accommodations will admit. The expense of such dinners to be defrayed by those who partake of them.

A conversation room has been set apart, so that silence may be kept in the reading rooms. There will be maps, pens, and ink in the conversation room, and as soon as some necessary previous arrangements (which are now actually making) shall be finished, those who frequent this room will be furnished at the most reasonable prices from the housekeepers room below with soups of various kinds, tea, coffee, chocolate, and other refreshments.

Two letter-boxes have been established in the great hall.

A complete printing office exists. The Journals will appear at regular intervals, probably once a week. The reports of the various committees for specific scientific investigations (which will soon be appointed by the managers) will no doubt furnish much interesting matter for the Journals of the Institution.

Twenty-five foreign periodical scientific publications, and twenty-four domestic periodical scientific and literary publications are regularly taken in. Twenty-four new foreign publications on scientific subjects have been purchased for the library, and many valuable books have been presented. Nine daily newspapers are taken in.

He goes on to say:

One of the most interesting details of the Institution still remains to be mentioned. It is the repository. The measures necessary for forming it have not been neglected, but from its nature it cannot be finished, nor indeed can it be begun, till the establishment is quite complete in all its other essential parts. Models of mechanical inventions and contrivances, in order to their being really useful, must be so made as to serve for imitation; consequently they must be constructed with the greatest care, and they cannot be made in the workshops of the Royal Institution till those shops are fitted up and furnished with the best tools and the best workmen. These workshops will soon be completed and properly manned. In the meantime a spacious and elegant room, 44 feet long and 32 feet wide, with the ceiling supported by two rows of columns, has been built for the repository, and will be finished in a month and ready to receive machines for public inspection. [This was the room beneath the theatre.] It may be useful to observe here that it never was the intention of the managers, nor of any of them, to expose to public view models of machines of all kinds indiscriminately. Considerable alarms have, it is said, been occasioned among some of our principal manufacturers from an idea that the construction of their machines and the valuable secrets of their trade, on which the excellence of their manufactures depend, are in danger of being disclosed by means of the public lectures and exhibitions of the Royal Institution, but the event will show that these apprehensions are without foundation.

The measure lately adopted by the managers for completing the attic story will be finished before the end of November.

As soon as this addition to the buildings shall be completed, and not before, there will be room in the house for the accommodation of a certain number of young men, from eighteen to twenty in number, of different mechanical professions, who, at the recommendation of proprietors, will be taken into the house to be instructed; who will be boarded and lodged in the house and be employed in the workshops, and for whose improvement in drawing, practical geometry, and mathematics an evening school, under the direction of the Clerk of the Works (Mr. Webster), who was formerly a teacher in such a school, will be established in the house in a room adjoining the workshops. As most of the young men who will be admitted to this seminary will probably come from distant parts of the country, and will return home after a residence of three or four months at the Institution, carrying with them a perfect knowledge of such new and useful inventions applicable to the common purposes of life as may be deserving of being generally known and adopted, it is easy to foresee that this arrangement will be of great and extensive public utility. It is, perhaps, that part of the establishment precisely which will be the most interesting, and which will contribute the most powerfully to the attainment of the principal object of the Institution—the diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements.

The proprietors, he says, were 325; life subscribers, 268; and annual subscribers, 527.

He concludes thus:

We may safely look forward with confidence to a period not far distant when the Royal Institution of Great Britain, complete in all its details, and in full activity, will become so interesting that every person of liberality and discernment who takes pleasure in contemplating the process of human improvement, will be desirous of belonging to it and willing to assist in promoting its permanent prosperity.

In June Davy was made Lecturer, instead of Assistant Lecturer, in Chemistry, and in a few days Dr. Garnett resigned. A permanent committee, consisting of Charles Hatchett, chairman, Lord Dundas, Mr. Howard, Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Pepys, Dr. G. Pearson, Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Carlisle, was appointed for the purposes of chemical investigation and analysis; to make such experiments in the laboratory of the Institution as they think useful; Messrs. Hatchett, Howard, and Nicholson were requested to draw up a few short rules for the ordinary meetings and manner of conducting the business of the committee; and once a month or once a fortnight the committee was to be allowed to dine together at the house of the Institution.

The managers resolved that on November 2 Mr. Davy should begin a course of lectures on Tanning; that he should have leave of absence in July, August, and September, to learn the practical part of the business; and that respectable persons of the trade, if recommended by proprietors of the Institution, should be admitted gratis.

In order to obtain more support Count Rumford drew up in his own name a letter to be sent as a circular with a printed fly-leaf. The heading of it ran thus:

Being desirous of becoming a member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, I request that Count Rumford would propose me to the managers of the said Institution as a candidate for election in the class pointed out in the column below, in which my name is subscribed.

1st class proprietors, who up to May 1802 pay seventy guineas; 2nd class life subscribers, who pay twenty guineas; 3rd class annual subscribers, three guineas.

The letter states that, as the Institution will certainly become more interesting and more useful in proportion as it is made more complete and more extensive in all its numerous details, it is very desirable that as great a number as possible of respectable individuals should be induced to unite in its support and interest themselves in its prosperity; and then, after mentioning that its plan has been much praised abroad, it says:

And if some persons in this country, influenced by misrepresentation or by groundless apprehensions or other motives, have been withheld from giving to the undertaking their countenance and support, the character, reputation, and distinguished rank of many of those who have been most active in promoting it, and who certainly may be supposed to be best acquainted with its nature and tendency, and above all the ostensible patronage of our most gracious Sovereign, who has given so many proofs of his solicitude to encourage useful improvements and to discourage dangerous and doubtful innovations, ought to be sufficient to relieve the doubts of all, and to recommend the Royal Institution of Great Britain to the support of all those who take pleasure in contributing to the diffusion of useful knowledge and the encouragement of industry and ingenuity.

The postscript says:

Any one or more gentlemen of your acquaintance whom you shall recommend will be proposed to the managers, and will no doubt be elected.

Soon after the third number of the Journal was edited by Rumford alone. It contained a paper on the ‘Use of Steam as a Vehicle for Conveying Heat from one Place to another,’ by Count Rumford, and ‘An Account of a New Eudyometer,’ by Mr. Davy.

In July Count Rumford returned to his own house, but he was requested to continue his general superintendence of the works in the same manner as if he had continued to reside in the house. Dr. Young, at the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, was made Professor of Natural Philosophy, Editor of the Journals, and Superintendent of the House, with 300l. a year and rooms. In the autumn Dr. Young alone edited the fourth number of the Journal, which consisted only of the outlines of a view of galvanism, which Davy had made his first course of lectures.

In August the Committee of Chemistry agreed to the following rules: To meet by summons the third Wednesday of every month at 7 P.M. That all decisions should be by ballot. The decisions respecting experiments to be undertaken should be made by a majority, consisting of three or more members. That the orders to the proper officers of the Institution concerning experiments should be strictly attended to, and be immediately carried into effect. That by unanimous ballot the Committee should elect new members. That every question should be put in writing, proposed, and seconded. That apparatus or materials, if immediately required, should be obtained without reference to the Committee of Managers. That the clerk should attend and take notes of all the proceedings of the Committee.

The managers immediately agreed that no person should be added to any committee without previous consultation with the committee on the qualification of the candidate proposed for election.

In the autumn Count Rumford went to Paris and Germany, and made the acquaintance of Madame Lavoisier. He returned by Paris. The clerk, Mr. W. Savage, wrote to him, probably in December:

In obedience to your commands, I annex an account of the present state of the works at the Royal Institution.

He then gives the state of the laboratory, the workshops for iron and copper, the joiners’ workshops, the kitchen, the library, the hall, and passage to the conversation room.

He then says:

The repository is in the same state you left it; indeed, it has been, and is at present, a workshop for the plumbers and glaziers.

The printing office. We are busy printing Dr. Young’s syllabus and beginning Mr. Davy’s. Dr. Young’s is expected to make 10 or 12 sheets. Of Mr. Davy’s there is none printed off. It is meant to be 6 sheets. We print 1,000 on common paper and 100 on large paper of Dr. Young’s, and 500 on common paper and 50 large of Mr. Davy’s. We have printed one sheet for a number of the Journals which contains part of Mr. Davy’s paper on Galvanism, but it appears very uncertain when we shall publish it. [This was No. 4.]

The apparatus for warming the lecture room is fitted up. They have tried it, but have not yet been able to raise the temperature more than 5 degrees. It is considerably hotter under the seats, and they have bored a great number of holes through the front of them to admit the hot air into the room.

Mr. Davy’s rooms are fitted up; he does not mean to give separate courses of lectures on tanning, and on staining and printing cotton, but purposes to incorporate them in his general course. The attic floor is far from being finished; they have not yet begun to plaster it, but it is all lathed. There are three additional annual subscribers, one of them through your letter (the circular). The Committee of Chemistry have resolved to recommend to the managers to provide apparatus to the amount of 314l. 11s. for the laboratory, and to stop the passage through and attach the servants’ hall to the laboratory.[19]

He ends his letter thus:

I anxiously wish for your return, as I can perceive that the Institution begins to feel the want of you. I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, Sir, your most humble Servant,

W. S.

The energy of supervision and the power of organisation of Count Rumford enabled him in 1801 to work out most of his plan; but to keep it in action far more money was wanted than he had obtained, and to perfect it he must have continued much longer to act the part of a dictator. Before 1801 was ended a new and powerful interest began to draw him away from his Institution and from England.

In three years he had made more or less perfect working models of an industrial school for mechanics; of a society for diffusing useful knowledge by publications and lectures; of a mechanical exhibition of things useful to the poor and to the rich; of an association for the promotion of scientific investigation by means of different committees of workers; and of a convenient modern club, with a school of cookery attached to it. He had included all these objects in one design, and had placed them under one roof.

He was not yet fifty years old, and after the events through which his energy had carried him he saw no difficulty, and thought it would be easy to make his most complicated Institution prove to the world how scientific knowledge might be useful to the lower as well as to the higher classes. He expected to gain the support of the whole nation. He wished that his Institution should be approved by all the world.

The difficulties and dangers that arose as he worked out his plan became only stimulants to his energy, and if engagements at Munich and attractions at Paris had not interfered, he would not have allowed his original Institution to fail from any want of support or from any opposition to his designs.

Already he had made enemies and met with difficulties, and early in 1802 political necessity and private interest led him abroad, and made him agree to changes which affected the foundations of his Institution, and caused it to approach in some respects nearer to its present form. Thus the year 1802 saw the first great change in the management of the Royal Institution.

In the sixth number of the Journal of the Institution the lectures of Young, and in the seventh number the lectures of Davy, which began on January 21, are mentioned by Young thus:

As the object of the Journals is to present to their readers discussions tending either to practical utility or to the illustrations of the principles of science, so particulars of any mode of demonstration either new or not commonly known that may occur in the lectures will be noticed.

Not that anything like an abstract is intended, for this may be found in the compendiums already published; but it may be the more proper to notice some experiments as it has not been possible to introduce an enumeration of experiments into those compendiums.

In a meeting of the Committee of Chemistry of the Institution on the 20th of January it was resolved that—

The Committee of Chemistry, having taken into consideration the present state of knowledge respecting the history of metallic alloys, and being of opinion that this branch of chemistry (so eminently important to science and so useful to various arts) has not been hitherto investigated with due accuracy, resolve that a series of experiments shall be made in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, in order to ascertain with all possible precision the physical and chemical properties of these metallic compounds.

This is probably the germ of Faraday’s investigation of the alloys of steel.

Count Rumford moved that all the stock 7,000l. in the funds belonging to the Institution should be sold out to pay for the new buildings and other debts.

Early in February it was resolved that each proprietor should have an extra transferable ticket, ‘to facilitate the admission of such artists and mechanics as may derive advantage from the public lectures delivered at the Institution, which will give admittance to the gallery only of the great lecture room and to no other part of the house.

‘Resolved,—That this new arrangement, which is intended as an experiment, do continue as long as the managers shall deem it expedient.’

On April 12 Count Rumford passed a resolution to increase the payments of life subscribers to forty guineas and of annual subscribers to four guineas, and to elect a new class of subscribers to the lectures only, the payment being two guineas. A requisition had been drawn up and signed to call a general meeting of the proprietors to enlarge the body of managers and visitors to fifteen, and to stop the election of more proprietors. Count Rumford did not sign this requisition. The managers who signed it were Winchelsea, Morton, Pelham, Banks, Sullivan, and Hatchett.

That the management of the Institution at this time was by no means harmonious is seen by a letter of Mr. Webster to his mother, and by his recollections, written some time afterwards, of the failure of the school for mechanics, of which he was to have been master.

January 8, 1802.

I wish I could give you a more favourable account of my situation at the Institution. I believe I told you it did not by any means answer my expectations; the men who conduct it at present cannot always be its managers, and its very system may and probably will be very much altered at some future period.... Except some change takes place in the domestic arrangements of the Institution, I do not think that I shall sleep there again; I am sorry to say that whatever good qualities the managers possess—and they are by no means deficient in them—they have shown very little attention to the comforts of those employed in it.

In his recollections he says:

But this project for improving mechanics, well intended as it was, which promised to be so useful, and which had already gained for the Institution ‘golden opinions,’ was doomed to be crushed by the timidity (for I shall forbear to speak more harshly) of a few. I was asked rudely (by an individual whom I shall not now name) what I meant by instructing the lower classes in science. I was told likewise that it was resolved upon that the plan must be dropped as quietly as possible. It was thought to have a dangerous political tendency, and I was told that if I persisted I would become a marked man! It was in vain to argue—the time was unfavourable—and I found the necessity of yielding. No notice was ever given publicly that the idea of instructing the mechanic was abandoned, and I have no doubt but that in many parts of the kingdom the Institution got the credit of great liberality long after the mechanics’ school had become extinct.

I have no wish to detail now a thousand circumstances curious enough in a historical point of view connected with my residence in the house of the Royal Institution; suffice it to say that, notwithstanding I became much known and had many friends, yet my chief views being evidently thwarted, and there being no prospect of my situation becoming valuable in a pecuniary way, I thought it was high time to think of my own interest, and I determined on becoming a landscape painter, a profession which then offered considerable prospects in a very agreeable and independent occupation. Count Rumford left England about the same time, certainly neither rewarded nor thanked in proportion to the good he had done.

The management of the Institution now fell into other hands, and, from what appeared to me very erroneous reasoning, my mechanics’ stone staircase was pulled down at a considerable expense. All the culinary and other contrivances which the Count and I had taken so much trouble to fit up in the kitchen as an exhibition—and many of them were really good things—were put away. The workmen employed in the house to make models were discharged, there being no one to direct them. The lecture room had been warmed by steam and satisfactorily. When the boiler was worn out (as things will in time) the whole steam apparatus was taken away by the ironmonger then employed, and something of his own was put up, which for years was an annoyance to Mr. Faraday, who did not even know that steam had ever been employed till I informed him. In short, it might seem as if the then managers had resolved that the Institution should not be for the application of science to the common purposes of life.

On April 26 Mr. Webster was allowed leave of absence for the benefit of his health until December 1, and he was given 50l. on account of his salary. This was his retirement from the Institution. In 1826 he was appointed house secretary of the Geological Society, and Curator of the Museum. He died in 1844, Professor of Geology in the (then) London University.

At the meeting of managers and visitors on the same day Count Rumford made a report on the present state of the Institution. This was the last meeting of the managers that he ever attended.

He said: ‘I shall briefly state what has been accomplished since my last report on May 25, 1801, and what still remains to be done to complete this great and interesting establishment in all its details.’

He spoke of the new lecture room as holding nine hundred persons; ‘a whisper may be distinctly heard from one extremity to the other, and no echo is ever perceived in it on any occasion.’

This theatre is warmed in cold weather by steam, which, coming in covered and concealed tubes from the lower part of the house, circulates in a large semicircular copper tube eight inches in diameter and above sixty feet long, which is concealed under the rising seats of the pit.

The repository already contains a considerable number of specimens of new and useful mechanical contrivances. The chemical laboratory, in which there is provision made for placing and using no less than sixteen furnaces of different kinds at the same time, is quite finished.

All the workshops of the Institution are now quite finished, and they have been furnished with the most complete sets of tools that could be procured, and several excellent workmen are now employed in them; and a great variety of useful articles designed as models of imitation have already been manufactured in the house, and are ready to be delivered to any of the proprietors or subscribers to the Institution who may be disposed to purchase them.

The great kitchen at the house of the Institution has been furnished, and now contains a variety of new and useful utensils and implements of cookery, many of which are in daily use, and others (which are not) are so exposed to view as to be easily understood and their merit appreciated.

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—

From 1780 to 1787 (7 to 14) he was chiefly at school. He gives an account of his acquirements in an autobiography written in Latin at this time—writing, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, mathematics, natural philosophy, introduction to the Newtonian philosophy, turning, telescope making, bookbinding, colour making, drawing, Hebrew, botany, fluctions, Priestly on Air, Italian, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan. He was a prodigy at fourteen.

His father had a neighbour, a man of great ingenuity, by profession a land-surveyor, in whose office during the holidays the boy was given the use of mathematical and philosophical instruments and the perusal of three volumes of a dictionary of arts and science. He got some practical knowledge of land-surveying. This led him to botany; and to examine his plants he made a microscope. This required a knowledge of optics, and thence he went to mathematics and fluctions.

From 1787 to 1792 (14 to 19) his studies and his position were equally extraordinary. He became classical tutor to a boy a year and a half his junior. Mr. Barclay, of Youngsbury, took him as companion to his grandson, Hudson Gurney, who had a tutor. Young taught the tutor Greek, and taught his companion Latin and Greek, whilst he taught himself Latin, French, Italian, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, and entomology.

When 16 (1789) he was threatened with consumption. His uncle, Dr. Brocklesby, the friend of Burke, attended him, and through him Burke and Porson and others became interested in the great classical knowledge of the youth, and encouraged him in his translations of Shakespear into Greek iambics.

It was at this period that his character was most strongly formed:

He was never known to relax in any object which he had once undertaken. During the whole term of these five years he was never seen by anyone on any occasion to be ruffled in temper. Whatever he determined on he did. He had little faith in any peculiar aptitude being implanted by nature for any given pursuits. His favourite maxim was, that whatever one man had done another might do; that the original difference between human intellects was much less than it was generally supposed to be; that strenuous and persevering attention would accomplish almost anything; and at this season, in the confidence of youth and consciousness of his own powers, he considered nothing that had been compassed by others beyond his reach to achieve; nor was there anything which he thought worthy to be attempted which he was not resolved to master.

In 1792 he entered the medical profession, learning anatomy from Hunter in London.

In 1793 he became a pupil at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on May 30 he had a paper read to the Royal Society on the ‘Structure of the Crystalline Lens,’ which he thought to be muscular. Hunter claimed the discovery as his, and was only prevented by death from giving the Croonian lecture at the Royal Society in proof of his right. Sir E. Home, in the Croonian lecture the following year, stated that neither Young nor Hunter was right.

In 1794 (æt. 21) he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

About this time the Duke of Richmond, at Bath, thus wrote to Dr. Brocklesby:

Bath, May 5, 1794.

I need not write much about myself, as your nephew, who dined with us yesterday, will give you a good account of my health. I have, however, still returns of head-ache, and my legs continue very weak. But I must tell you how much pleased we all are with Mr. Young. I really never saw a young man more pleasing and engaging. He seems to have already acquired much knowledge in most branches and to be studious of obtaining more; it comes out without affectation on all subjects he talks upon. He is very cheerful and easy without assuming anything, and even on the peculiarity of his dress and Quakerism he talked so reasonably that one cannot wish him to alter himself in any one particular. In short, I end as I began, by assuring you that the Duchess and I are quite charmed with him, and shall be happy to renew our acquaintance with him when we return to London.

Later in the autumn the Duke, who was Master-General of the Ordnance, offered to make him his private secretary.

In a letter to his mother Young says:

I have very lately refused the pressing offer of a situation which would have been the most favourable and flattering introduction to political life that a young man in my circumstances could desire. I might have lived at a duke’s table, with a salary of 200l. a year, as his secretary, and with hopes of a more lucrative appointment in a short time. I should have been in an agreeable family, have had time enough for study, a library, a laboratory, and philosophical apparatus at my service; and I was not ashamed to allege my regard for our society as a principal reason for my not accepting the proposal.

In the winter of 1794-5 he went to Edinburgh to study medicine. He learnt Spanish, German, music in theory and by playing the flute, dancing; and he went as much as he could into society and to the play.

Soon after he left Edinburgh in June he wrote to his friend and fellow-student Dr. Bostock:

I have seen Mrs. Siddons in ‘Douglas,’ the ‘Grecian Daughter,’ the ‘Mourning Bride,’ the ‘Provoked Husband,’ the ‘Fatal Marriage,’ ‘Macbeth,’ and ‘Venice Preserved.’ She was neither below nor much above my expectation. I can form an idea of something more perfect. My friend Cruikshanks, when I went to take my leave of him, took me aside and, after much preamble, told me he heard I had been at the play, and hoped that I should be able to contradict it. I told him ‘I had been several times, and thought it right to go,’ &c. &c., as civilly as I could. ‘I know you are determined to discourage my dancing and singing, and I am determined to pay no regard whatever to what you say. You think I shall never be able to play the flute well, and I am pretty sure that I may if I choose; as to dancing, the die is cast.’

At this time he gave up the dress and all the other peculiarities of the Quakers.

On June 5 he started on a journey through the Highlands ‘in se totus teres atque rotundus,’ as a friend described him.

I was mounted on a stout, well-made black horse, fourteen hands high, young and spirited, which I had purchased from my friend Cathcart. I had before me my oiled linens, the spencer with a separate camlet cover; under me a pair of saddle-bags, well filled with three or four changes of linen, a waistcoat, and breeches; materials for writing and for drawing; paper, pens, ink, pencils, and colours; packing-paper and twine for minerals; soap, brushes, and a razor; a small edition of Thomson’s ‘Seasons,’ a third flute in a bag; some music, principally Scotch, bound with some blank music-paper; wafers; a box for botanising; a thermometer; two little bottles with spirits for preserving insects; a bag for picking up stones; two maps of Scotland—Ainslie’s small one and Sayer’s; letters of recommendation. The bags had pockets at the end, one containing a pair of shoes, the other boards with straps and paper for drying plants. I found my bags at first an encumbrance, but became afterwards more reconciled to them. They are to a saddle what pockets are to a coat; and who objects to wearing pockets? But they were wetted the first day and stained their contents. This will make me more careful in future.

Some of his notes at Gordon and Inverary Castles are cabinet pictures.

It was Lady Georgina’s birthday (afterwards Duchess of Bedford); the flag was hoisted. Lord Alexander’s regiment of little boys was paraded, and employed in racing and dancing on the green, and in the evening a ball was given to the servants; all the family went downstairs and amused themselves with observing the agility of the lads and lasses. Every person employed about the house, except one man, is married, and most of them are descended from those who have served the family before them. The Duchess proposed, in honour of the day, that Sir George Abercrombie and I should dance a reel with the two younger ladies; for they danced nothing but reels. Afterwards the Duke danced with one of the upper servants. Some time after our party joined again in the amusement at the same time with two others; when it was late, and Sir George was tired, we took a girl in his place and resumed the sport. Lady Madeline (Sinclair) sat by, and made the music play till the other sets quitted the field, and left us victorious to reel through the whole room. I have now written as much of dancing in my tour as Johnson has in his, and as much more as a young man may be expected to write of it than an old one.

At Inverary [he writes] after breakfast the party were to ride, and the Doctor gravely submitted to my determination whether I would go at a slow pace with him and the Duke to view the country leisurely on the way, or ride with the ladies and be galloped over. I told him that of all things I liked to be galloped over, and therefore should be of the youthful party....

After dinner the Duke rode again, and the younger men of the party took a walk. I left them about nine, and joined the ladies at tea. I was showing Lady Charlotte some of my sketches; she begged to see my notes, and I showed the greatest part of them. All the family are musical; the ladies sing admirably. Cards and a fine piano occupied the evening. After supper, besides other songs, I heard a most beautiful canzonet by Jackson, beginning ‘Love in thy eyes.’ It was twelve o’clock when we retired. After breakfast I took my leave, not without regretting that I had so little time to observe the beauties of Inverary. Lady Charlotte is handsomer than Lady Augusta: she sings better, but she has less good sense and less sweetness. An innocent girlishness sometimes gives her the appearance of a little affectation. She is to Lady Augusta what Venus is to Minerva. I suppose she wishes for no more. Both are goddesses.

On October 7 he left London to graduate at Göttingen; he went by Hamburg.

On December 14 he wrote to Dr. Bostock:

You will be pleased, as a lover of the fine arts, to hear that I am taking lessons in drawing. You will not be surprised that I receive in this study, as well as in music and dancing, full approbation from my masters for application and accuracy. At the same time they honestly tell me that ease is wanting, and you will also readily believe that I have the assurance not to be discouraged with this character, while they all assert that I may confidently expect sufficient advancement in due time....

I have not exhibited myself at a public dance. My master, who is a very sensible fellow, advising me against it, as he observed that a person seldom loses the character which he obtains from the first impressions; but we have agreed that I may venture at the next pique nique.

On the alternate Sundays we have a dance: either a tea dance or a supper dance; one from four to eight, and the other from five to one. This is called a pique nique, and in its constitution resembles a Scotch oyster dance.

Soon after, to his uncle, he says:

Blumenbach has shown me many civilities, but I am most at home at Arnemann’s, under whose roof I live, and who has been long in Britain, and brought an English wife home with him. You need not be afraid of my following his example and marrying a German lady. I am not likely to lose my heart here, though there are some tolerably agreeable girls with whom I wish to be more acquainted for the sake of exercise in the language; for conversation with women gives both a fluency of expression and a delicacy of manners which are never to be learned from men.

On April 30 he passed his examination before the Medical Faculty.

I made [says he] no preparatory study, as is usual here, and also at Edinburgh not uncommon, under the name of grinding. The examination lasted between four and five hours. The four examiners were seated round a table, well furnished with cakes, sweetmeats, and wine, which helped to pass the time agreeably. The questions were well calculated to sound the depth of a student’s knowledge in practical physics, surgery, anatomy, chemistry, materia medica, and physiology; but the professors were not very severe in exacting accurate answers. Most of them were pleased to express their approbation of my replies. We were all previously obliged to give a summary account of the manner in which our lives had been spent.

He wrote to his uncle towards the close of his residence in Göttingen thus:

I have this morning been upon the back of the Springer. To mount this terrestrial Pegasus is considered here something like Summos in re equestri honores, and is seldom attained without long practice. I finish my lessons this week and look back with satisfaction on the health and amusement which have repaid my time and money. It might, perhaps, be more useful to me to take some instruction how to sit in a doctor’s chariot; but it is impossible to possess any qualification which one may not want, and capabilities are but light burdens. We have another fashionable exercise, which I think adequately corresponds to the athletic schools of the ancients—vaulting on a wooden horse in various positions—and I am much more known among the students for excelling in this than for writing Greek, of which they have little knowledge and not much more respect.

After being nine months at Göttingen he returned by Brunswick, Gotha, Weimar, Jena, Dresden, and Berlin to England in February 1797. At Brunswick he had a favourable opportunity of exhibiting his personal agility at a court masquerade, where he made his appearance with great success in the character of Harlequin.

From Berlin he wrote, December 12, to his uncle: ‘You say my Thesis (for his medical degree, on the conservative forces of the human body) is caviare to the general; but do not you think people have a greater respect for anything out of the common way? It seems a fatality that almost everything I do, or produce, should be termed stiff; in this case it may arise from my having been obliged to treat the subject in a short compass.’

Finding, when he came back from Germany, that the College of Physicians of London required two years’ continuous attendance at one university for a licence to practise, and shut out from the Fellowship all who were not graduates at Cambridge or Oxford, he went as fellow-commoner to Emmanuel College, Cambridge; and the account given by one who was afterwards tutor of the college brings the Professor of the Royal Institution most clearly into view.

When the Master [says the writer] introduced Young to his tutors, he jocularly said, ‘I have brought you a pupil qualified to read lectures to his tutors.’ This, however, as might be concluded, he did not attempt; and the forbearance was mutual: he was never required to attend the common duties of the College.

He had a high character for classical learning before he came to Cambridge; but I believe he did not pursue his classical studies in the latter part of his life—he seldom spoke of them, but I remember his meeting Dr. Parr in the College Combination Room; and when the Doctor had made, as was not unusual with him, some dogmatical observation on a point of scholarship, Young said firmly, ‘Bently, sir, was of a different opinion,’ immediately quoting his authority and showing his intimate knowledge of the subject. Parr said nothing, but when Dr. Young retired asked who he was, and, though he did not seem to have heard his name before, he said, ‘A smart young man that.’

He had a great talent for Greek verse, and on one occasion I remember a young lady had written on the walls of the summer-house in the garden the following lines:—

On the next morning appeared a translation in Greek elegiacs, written under them in Young’s beautiful characters.

It may be here mentioned that when his mode of writing Greek was laid before Porson, he said that if he had seen it before he would have adopted it.

The views, objects, character, and arguments of our mathematicians were very different then to what they are now, and Young, who was certainly beforehand with the world, perceived their defects. Certain it is that he looked down upon the science, and would not cultivate the acquaintance of any of our philosophers. Wood’s books I have heard him speak of with approbation, but Vince he treated with contempt, and Vince afterwards returned the compliment.

He never obtruded his various learning in conversation, but if appealed to on the most difficult subject he answered in a quick, flippant, derisive way, as if he was speaking of the most easy; and in this mode of talking he differed from all the clever men that I ever saw. His reply never seemed to cost him an effort, and he did not appear to think there was any credit in being able to make it. He did not assert any superiority, or seem to suppose that he possessed it, but spoke as if he took it for granted that we all understood the matter as well as he did. He never spoke in praise of any of the writers of the day, even in his own particular department, and could not be persuaded to discuss their merits. He was never personal; he would speak of knowledge in itself of what was known or what might be known, but never of himself or any other as having deserved anything, or as likely to do so.

His language was correct, his utterance rapid, and his sentences, though without any affectation, never left unfinished; but his words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was, therefore, worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge.

I remember his taking me with him to the Royal Institution to hear him lecture to a number of silly women and dilettante philosophers. But nothing could show less judgment than the method he adopted; for he presumed, like many other lecturers and preachers, on the knowledge, and not on the ignorance, of his hearers.

In his manners he had something of the stiffness of the Quaker remaining, and, though he never said or did a rude thing, he never made use of any of the forms of politeness. Not that he avoided them through affectation; his behaviour was natural, without timidity, and easy without boldness. He rarely associated with the young men of the College, who called him, with a mixture of derision and respect, ‘Phenomenon Young,’ but he lived on familiar terms with the Fellows in the Common Room. He had few friends of his own age or pursuits in the University, and not having been introduced to many of those who were distinguished either by their situation or talent, he did not seek their society, nor did they seek him; they did not like to admit the superiority of anyone in statu pupillari, and he would not converse with anyone but as an equal.

It is difficult to say how he employed himself; he read little, and though he had access to the College and University libraries he was seldom seen in them. There were no books piled on his floor, no papers scattered on his table, and his room had all the appearance of belonging to an idle man.

I once found him blowing smoke through long tubes, and I afterwards saw a representation of the effect in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society,’ to illustrate one of his papers upon sound; but he was not in the habit of making experiments. He walked little and rode less; but, having learnt to ride the great horse abroad, he used to pace round Parker’s Piece on a hackney: he once made an attempt to follow the hounds, but a severe fall prevented any future exhibition.

He seldom gave an opinion, and never volunteered one. He never laid down the law like other learned doctors, or uttered apophthegms or sayings to be remembered. Indeed, like most mathematicians (though we hear of abstract mathematics), he never seemed to think abstractedly. A philosophical fact, a difficult calculation, an ingenious instrument, or a new invention, would engage his attention; but he never spoke of morals, of metaphysics, or of religion. Of the last I never heard him say a word, nothing in favour of any sect, or in opposition to any doctrine; at the same time, no sceptical doubt, no loose assertion, no idle scoff, ever escaped him.

On July 8, 1799, he sent from Emmanuel College a paper to the Royal Society, entitled ‘Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries respecting Sound and Light.’ In it he established the great principle of the interference of sounds, and he wrote one section on the analogy of sound and light. In 1800 he referred, in the ‘British Magazine,’ to a young gentleman of Edinburgh ‘who certainly promises, in the course of time, to add considerably to our knowledge of the works of nature, but who had a paper in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1798, in which what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.’ Dr. Robison, in his article on Music in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ criticised Young’s papers. In Nicholson’s ‘Philosophical Journal’ for 1801 Young answered Robison, and published an extension of the principles of interferences from sound to light. This was the preliminary announcement of his views regarding the undulatory theory of light.