Chapter IV (1)

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, 19,257_l._ 8_s._; Expenditure, 12,601_l._ 2_s._ 1_d._; Consols, costing 4,471_l._ 5_s._; Balance at Banker’s, 2,185_l._ 0_s._ 11_d._; Debts due, 4,400_l._: making a disposable sum of between 10,000_l._ and 11,000_l._ ‘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 7,000_l._ 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 80_l._ a year and a room in the house.’

Sir Joseph Banks recommended Mr. Böekman, a German chemist, to be engaged in the laboratory at 50_l._ 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 300_l._ 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 314_l._ 11_s._ 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 7,000_l._ 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 50_l._ 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 3,900_l._ The balance at the banks and
the debts to the Institution came to 8,100_l._ 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:

‘But what an insolence in me to prate,
Pretend to him to open Wisdom’s gate,
Who spurns advice, like weeds, where’er it springs,
Disdaining counsel,[A] though it comes from kings.’

[A] ‘Here I must beg leave to differ from the Count. Although a
man may, like the Count, possess _extraordinary intellect_, and
though a man may be the _best judge_ of _himself_, nevertheless it
is _indecorous_ to treat the opinions of _others_ with contempt.
The Count’s constant assertion is, ‘I never was yet in the wrong;
I know everything.’ Granting this to be true, the declaration
nevertheless is _arrogant_ and supercilious.’

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 3,900_l._ the balance at the bankers’ was 3,180_l._ The arrears came to 4,960_l._ 10_s._, but these were chiefly bad debts.

In 1799 the income was 6,379_l._; in 1800, 11,047_l._; in 1801, 3,474_l._; whilst in 1802 it was only 2,999_l._ 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 3,000_l._ 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 3,000_l._ 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 100_l._ 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 4,850_l._ For the charter, 583_l._ For arms, 101_l._
For lecture room, repository, laboratory, and workshop, 5,227_l._,
which was 1,800_l._ 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]... 1,181_l._ 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 47_l._
14_s._ 10½_d._ 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: