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Title: The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors

Author: Bence Jones

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROYAL
INSTITUTION: ITS FOUNDER AND FIRST PROFESSORS ***

THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

THE
ROYAL INSTITUTION:

ITS FOUNDER
and
ITS FIRST PROFESSORS.

BY
DR. BENCE JONES,
HONORARY SECRETARY.

LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1871.

PREFACE.
I begin the history of the Royal Institution, and its professors to the time of
Faraday, with the life of its founder, Count Rumford, because his career and
character determined its original form. I have written short accounts of the
earliest professors because the spirit that has shown itself in them has up to
this time been the life of the Institution. Dr. Garnett and Dr. Thomas Young
had comparatively little influence there, because the founder took the most
active part in the establishment of his Institution; but when Count Rumford
and Sir Joseph Banks had left and Mr. Bernard and Sir John Hippesley were
the leading managers, Professor Davy gradually became the main supporter
of the place, and to him chiefly it owes the form which it now retains.
During the last half-century the name of Faraday has been so blended with
that of the Royal Institution that few people know what Davy made it; and
fewer still have heard what Rumford at first intended it to be.
The following account will show that the Institution owes its origin entirely
to Rumford, and would certainly have failed but for Davy. Moreover, it will
be seen that before Faraday came there, it had been the home of Dr. Garnett
and of Dr. Thomas Young; Dr. Dalton had lodged and lectured for weeks
there; Sydney Smith, Coleridge, Sir James Smith, Dibden, Dr. Crotch,
Campbell, Landseer, Opie, and Flaxman had also lectured there; Sir Joseph
Banks and Mr. Cavendish had been managers, and Dr. Wollaston and Dr.
Jenner had been members.
I have searched everywhere to find new or forgotten facts about the
Institution.
For the sketch of the founder I owe much to the Rev. Dr. G. E. Ellis, of
Boston, who has lately written the Life of Rumford for the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. I have found many despatches and letters
relating to Rumford in the manuscripts of the American War now in the
library of the Royal Institution, and in the unpublished correspondence of
Sir Joseph Banks, in the archives of the Foreign Office, and in the State
Paper Office.

Not the least strange fact in the history of this original man is that during his
life he received no thanks for all that he did for the Royal Institution.
Moreover at the present time he is scarcely known as the finder of Davy
and the founder of that place where very many of the greatest scientific
discoveries of this century have been made.
For the account of the origin and progress of the Institution I have searched
the minutes of the meetings of the managers, the proprietors, and the
members. I am much indebted to Earl Spencer, who has lent me from the
Althorp library a printed copy of the first prospectus of the Royal
Institution. This was written by Count Rumford. I have found many
forgotten things in the manuscript letters to and from Sir Joseph Banks, to
which I have had access by permission of the Knatchbull family; also in a
manuscript life of Mr. Webster, the architect of the Royal Institution theatre;
and in some letters which belonged to Mr. Savage, the clerk and first printer
at the Institution, and for which I am indebted to his daughters.
For the sketch of the lives of Dr. Garnett and of Dr. Young I have been able
to find very little original matter.
For the life of Sir Humphry Davy I have met with some new facts in his
laboratory note-books. These books give most of his daily work at the time
when he was making his great discoveries regarding chemical electricity,
the alkalies, and chlorine. I have also had the use of the notes by Faraday of
four of the last lectures given by Davy at the Institution. This is the
manuscript volume sent to Davy by Faraday when he asked to be employed
at the Institution. It consists of 386 small quarto pages. Davy at this time
was thirty-three, and Faraday was twenty-one. The one was full of energy to
profit by the excellence he could follow, or to shun the evil he could
foresee; the other had long reached the climax of his success by his youthful
popularity as a lecturer and his early renown as a discoverer; and was about
to make a rich and an unsuitable marriage; and before long was to suffer
from the restlessness of the failing health that ended in fatal disease.
Whenever a true comparison between these two nobles of the Institution
can be made, it will probably be seen that the genius of Davy has been hid
by the perfection of Faraday.

Incomparably superior as Faraday was in unselfishness, exactness, and
perseverance, and in many other respects also, yet certainly in originality
and in eloquence he was inferior to Davy, and in love of research he was by
no means his superior.
Davy, from his earliest energy to his latest feebleness, loved research; and,
notwithstanding his marriage, his temper, and his early death, he first
gained for the Royal Institution that great reputation for original discovery
which has been and is the foundation of its success.

H. B. J.

Royal Institution, Albemarle Street,
October 27, 1871.

CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE LIFE OF COUNT RUMFORD BEFORE THE
FOUNDATION OF THE INSTITUTION 1

II. HIS LIFE AFTER THE FOUNDATION OF THE
INSTITUTION 69

III. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION, 1799-
1800; WITH THE LIFE OF PROFESSOR GARNETT,
1766-1802 114

IV. THE PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO THE
RESIGNATION OF PROFESSOR YOUNG, 1801-3;
WITH THE LIFE OF Dr. THOMAS YOUNG, 1773-1829 180

V. THE FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO
THE TIME OF FARADAY, 1804-14 258

VI. THE LIFE OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, 1788-1829 312

APPENDIX

I. ORIGINAL PAPERS REGARDING THE AMERICAN
WAR 405

II. ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM Dr. THOMAS YOUNG 417

III. INCOME AND EXPENDITURE OF THE ROYAL
INSTITUTION TO 1814 425

THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.

CHAPTER I.
LIFE OF RUMFORD BEFORE THE
FOUNDATION OF THE INSTITUTION.
1753 to 1799.
At Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the year 1630, James Thompson was
among Winthrop’s company. He settled about ten miles inland, and the
place was called Woburn. In 1752 Benjamin Thompson was there with his
father, Captain Ebenezer Thompson, and he married Ruth Simonds, of that
place. Their child, the future Count Rumford, was born in his grandfathers
farmhouse, on March 26, 1753. The house is still to be seen near the
meeting-house in North Woburn. When the child was a year old his father
died, and when he was three years old his mother married again. ‘To the
close of her life Rumford wrote to her full of affection, and by the
munificent provision which he made for her he showed his tender, grateful
regard for her.’
A small inheritance from his grandfather helped to support and to educate
the boy. By the law of Massachusetts everyone had a good grammar-school
education, and the village school teacher at Woburn was then a graduate of
Harvard College and taught a little Latin. From his earliest years the boy
was fickle and careless. He neglected regular work, but liked arithmetic. He
was full of energy and quick to make what he wanted. When eleven he went
to a better school in the neighbouring town of Medford. When thirteen
Benjamin Thompson appeared unlikely to make a farmer. He was therefore
apprenticed to an importer of British goods and a dealer in everything, at
Salem, on October 14, 1766. ‘Instead of watching for customers over the
counter, he busied himself with tools and instruments under it.’ When he
could he played his fiddle, and played it well. When only fourteen his
master allowed him to make small ventures in shipping goods that were
paid for by a relative. He was clever at drawing and cutting names, and he
thought he had ‘invented a machine for making motion perpetual.’ When
the repeal of the Stamp Act occurred, he blew himself up with fireworks,

and was in great danger of death. His master signed the non-importation
agreement. Thus his apprentice became useless. When sixteen he returned
to his mother. To an elder school-fellow, L. Baldwin, at this time he wrote
questions on light, heat, and the wind.
In 1769, when seventeen, he was apprentice and clerk to a drygoods dealer
at Boston. There he went to an evening-school to learn French, paying only
for the hours he attended.
A note-book made by him about this time still exists. It abounds in
caricatures. Has receipts for different fireworks. One of these ends with,
‘Love is a noble passion of the mind.’ Contains the sum he paid for learning
French and for pew-rent, and the sums gained by cutting and carting
firewood for relatives. Instructions for the back sword exercise, with a
sketch of two combatants; and later there is an account of ‘what expense I
have been at towards getting an electrical machine,’ and ‘an account of
what work I have done towards getting an electrical machine.’
In the winter of 1770 he was ill for five weeks with fever. Then for eighteen
months off and on he boarded with Dr. John Hay, of Woburn, and whilst
with him he learned something of anatomy, chemistry, materia medica,
surgery, and physic. During the summer, 1771, he went to Cambridge, to
attend Mr. Winthrop’s lectures on Experimental Philosophy. In the winter of
1771-2 for some weeks he was teaching in a school at Wilmington, and in
the spring he taught at Bradford. In the summer he left Dr. Hay for good,
because he was asked by Colonel Walker to become the fixed master of a
school at Concord, New Hampshire. This place had been called Rumford
when it belonged to Essex County, Massachusetts. The name was changed
when the disputes as to the county to which it belonged were ended.
The Rev. T. Walker was the first minister of Concord. He was a native of
Woburn and connected with the Thompson family. He was the chief man in
Concord. His son was a colonel and a lawyer, and his daughter, when about
thirty, was married to Colonel Rolfe, who was sixty. She was left a rich
widow in two years, and in the middle of the following year Thompson
came as schoolmaster to Concord. He was not yet quite twenty. His friend
Baldwin describes him ‘as of fine, manly make and figure, nearly six feet
high, with handsome features, bright blue eyes and dark auburn hair. His

manners were polished and his ways fascinating, and he could make
himself agreeable. He had well used his opportunities of culture, so that his
knowledge was beyond that of most of those around him, and he was able
to give satisfaction as a teacher.’
In the country parsonage and at Colonel Walker’s house he frequently met
Mrs. Rolfe, and he told his friend Professor Pictet that she married him
rather than he her. This was about the end of 1772, when he was nearly
twenty. He had to teach no more in school. His marriage made him one of
the chief men in Concord.
After his marriage he went with his wife to Portsmouth, where she knew
Governor Wentworth. ‘He saw in young Thompson not only the
representative of a family already known in the public and social life of his
province, but also a man of much promise, one likely to work vigorously in
whatever he took up.’ The Governor soon gave Thompson a commission as
major in the second provincial regiment of New Hampshire. The young
officer at once became an object of jealousy and ill-will to all the
lieutenants and captains of his regiment. The favour of the Governor made
all his brother officers his enemies.
The following letter to the Rev. Mr. Williams, at Bradford, afterwards
Professor at the college there, shows the influence of Thompson with the
Governor, and also some of his scientific thoughts and aims:

Concord, Monday, January 17, 1773.
Dear Sir,—Last Friday I had the honour to wait upon his Excellency,
Governour Wentworth, at Portsmouth, where I was very politely and
agreeably entertained for the space of an hour and a half. I had not
been in his company long before I proceeded upon business, viz. to ask
his Excellency whether ever the White Mountains had been surveyed.
He answering me in the negative, I proceeded to acquaint him that
there was a number of persons who had thought of making an
expedition that way next summer, and asked him whether it would be
agreeable to his Excellency. He said it would be extremely agreeable,
seemed excessively pleased with the plan, promised to do all that lay
in his power to forward it,—said that he had a number of Mathematical
instruments (such as two or three telescopes, Barometer, Thermometer,

Compass, &c.) at Wentworth House, (at Wolfeborough, only about
thirty miles from the mountains), all which, together with his library,
should be at our service. That he should be extremely glad to wait on
us, and to crown all he promised, if there were no public business
which rendered his presence at Portsmouth absolutely necessary, that
he would take his tent equipage and go with us to the mountain and
tarry with us, and assist us till our survey, which he said he supposed
would take about twelve or fourteen days!!!—!!—!!!!!

During 1773 he was chiefly farming. Whilst on a visit with his wife to
Boston he was introduced to Governor Gage and to several of the British
officers. Among those who worked for him on his farm were four deserters
from the grenadiers at Boston. He persuaded them to return to their
regiment. He wrote to General Gage to beg pardon for them. He asked that
his petition might be kept secret. He wished not to excite more enmity
among his neighbours. But the use of his influence with the Governor got
known. The bitterest feeling was working in the country. Civil war was
about to begin. Major Thompson was suspected by the people because he
was in favour with the royal Governors. The committees of correspondence
and of safety listened to the reports of any of the ‘sons of liberty.’ Major
Thompson was called before a committee of the people in Concord for
being ‘unfriendly to the cause of liberty.’ He denied the charge, and was
acquitted. About this time (August 1774) he asks his friend, Mr. Loammi
Baldwin, merchant in Woburn, ‘to favour him with an easy question,
arithmetical or algebraical, and he will give as good an account of it as
possible.’ In October his only child, Sarah, was born. In November the mob
gathered round his house, but by friendly warning he was able to escape to
his mother’s at Woburn, fifty miles away. Here he sought to busy himself by
reading, and he made some experiments on gunpowder; but ill-will soon
followed him, and he was driven for shelter to a friend at Charleston.
Thence he wrote to his father-in-law at Concord:

December 24, 1774.
Reverend Sir,—The time and circumstances of my leaving the town of
Concord have, no doubt, given you great uneasiness, for which I am
extremely sorry. Nothing short of the most threatening danger could
have induced me to leave my friends and family; but when I learned

from persons of undoubted veracity, and those whose friendship I
could not suspect, that my situation was reduced to this dreadful
extremity, I thought it absolutely necessary to abscond for a while, and
seek a friendly asylum in some distant part.
Fear of miscarriage prevents my giving a more particular account of
this affair; but this you may rely and depend upon, that I never did, nor
(let my treatment be what it will) ever will do, any action that may
have the most distant tendency to injure the true interest of this my
native country.
I most humbly beg your kind care of my distressed family; and I hope
you will take an opportunity to alleviate their trouble by assuring them
that I am in a place of safety, and hope shortly to have the pleasure of
seeing them. I also most humbly beseech your prayers for me, that
under all my difficulties and troubles I may behave in such a manner
as to approve myself a true servant of God and a sincere friend of my
country.
To have tarried at Concord and have stood another trial at the bar of
the populace would doubtless have been attended with unhappy
consequences, as my innocence would have stood me in no stead
against the prejudices of an enraged, infatuated multitude,—and much
less against the determined villany of my inveterate enemies, who
strive to raise their popularity on the ruins of my character. My friends
would have been deemed unfriendly to the cause of Liberty, and my
defence would have been treated with contempt and disdain. It would
have been vain for me to have pretended to curb the fury or calm the
rage of this popular whirlwind; but I must have been cast, and
condemned to suffer punishments equal to the blackness of my
supposed transgressions.
The plan against me was deeply laid, and the people of Concord were
not the only ones that were engaged in it. But others to the distance of
twenty miles were extremely officious on this occasion. My
persecution was determined on, and my flight unavoidable. And had I
not taken the opportunity to leave the town the moment I did, another
morning had effectually cut off my retreat.

In May his wife and her infant joined him at his mother’s home at Woburn.
When there, skirmishes took place between the people and troops at
Concord, Massachusetts, and Lexington, and in this last fight Major
Thompson is said to have taken part with the people; but he was soon the
object of ill-feeling, and, although he was saved from immediate arrest by
his friend Major Baldwin, a short time afterwards he was arrested, and then
he appealed from the Committee of Correspondence of Woburn to the
Committee of Safety of the Provincial Congress. When he was acquitted at
Woburn and set free, he withdrew his petition from the Committee of
Safety. Soon after he was with Major Baldwin at Charlestown, and probably
he took part in the battle of Bunker’s Hill. He certainly helped to pack up
the library at Cambridge, and was only prevented by the officers of the New
Hampshire Militia from obtaining a commission from General Washington.
When epaulets were ordered for the non-commissioned officers, he had
samples made and sent them with the price to his friend, then Colonel
Baldwin, offering to take an order for any number that might be wanted.
In August he again writes a long reply to his father-in-law, in answer to
letters urging him to express his sorrow that he had done wrong and to ask
forgiveness of the people:

Woburn, August 14, 1775.
As to my being instrumental in the return of some Deserters, by
procuring them a pardon, I freely acknowledge that I was. But you will
give me leave to say that what I did was done from principles the most
unexceptionable—the most disinterested—a sincere desire to serve my
King and Country, from motives of Pity to those unfortunate Wretches
who had deserted the service to which they had voluntarily and so
solemnly tyed themselves, and to which they were desirous of
returning. If the designed ends were not answered by what I did, I am
sincerely and heartily sorry. But if it is a Crime to act from principles
like these, I glory in being a Criminal.
Many other crimes which you do not mention have been laid to my
charge, for which I have had to answer both publicly and privately. My
enemies are indefatigable in their endeavours to distress me, and I find
to my sorrow that they are but too successful. I have been driven from

the Camp by the clamours of the New Hampshire people, and am
again threaten’d in this place. But I hope soon to be out of the reach of
my Cruel Persecutors, for I am determined to seek for that Peace and
Protection in foreign Lands and among strangers which is deny’d me
in my native country. I cannot any longer bear the insults that are daily
offered me. I cannot bear to be looked upon and treated as the Achan
of Society. I have done nothing that can deserve this cruel usage. I
have done nothing with any design to injure my countrymen, and
cannot any longer bear to be treated in this barbarous manner by them.
And notwithstanding I have the tenderest regard for my Wife and
family, and really believe I have an equal return of love and affection
from them; though I feel the keenest distress at the thoughts of what
Mrs. Thompson and my Parents and friends will suffer on my account,
and though I foresee and realise the distress, poverty, and
wretchedness that must unavoidably attend my Pilgrimage in unknown
lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintance, yet all these Evils
appear to me more tolerable than the treatment which I meet with from
the hands of my ungrateful countrymen.[1]
I am too well acquainted with your Paternal affection for your
Children to doubt of your kind care over them. But you will excuse me
if I trouble you with my most earnest desires and entreaties for your
peculiar care of my family, whose distressed circumstances call for
every indulgence and alleviation you can afford them.
I must also beg a continuance of your Prayers for me, that my present
afflictions may have a suitable impression on my mind, and that in due
time I may be extricated out of all my troubles. That this may be the
case, that the happy time may soon come when I may return to my
family in peace and safety, and when every individual in America may
sit down under his own vine, and under his own Fig-tree, and have
none to make him afraid, is the constant and devout wish of
Your dutiful and affectionate son,
Benjamin Thompson.
Rev. Tim. Walker.

Dr. Ellis, in his admirable biography, says:

Major Thompson remained in and about Woburn two months after
writing his last letter to Mr. Walker, in which he so deliberately
avowed his intentions. He settled his affairs with his neighbours,
collecting dues and paying debts, well assured that his wife and child
would lack none of the means of a comfortable support. Having thus
made all his preparations, he started from Woburn, October 13, 1775,
in a country vehicle, accompanied by his stepbrother, Josiah Pierce,
who drove him near to the bounds of the province, on the shore of
Narragansett Bay, whence young Pierce returned. Thompson was taken
on board the ‘Scarborough,’ British frigate, to Newport and from
thence to Boston.

In the Alienation Act of the Senate of New Hampshire in 1778 he was
named among the proscribed; and in 1781, the confiscation papers of his
property call him ‘of Woburn, physician, now an absentee.’
Whilst Mr. Thompson was at Boston the American rebellion became a
revolution. General Gage was succeeded by General Howe, and to him
Lord Dartmouth wrote in September 1775: ‘No room was left for any other
consideration but that of proceeding against the twelve associated Colonies
in all respects with the utmost vigour as the open and avowed enemies of
the State,’ and he spoke of the great risk and little advantage that are to be
expected from the continuance of the army at Boston during the winter, and
on the advantages of recovering possession of New York. He tells the
general that ‘the Empress of Russia, in the fullness of her affection for the
British nation, and of gratitude for the benefits she had received under her
late difficulties, had made the most explicit declaration and given the most
ample assurance of any number of infantry that might be wanted.’ When,
‘in consequence of this generous and magnanimous offer,’ a requisition was
made to her for 20,000 men for Canada, objections arose, and ‘much
embarrassment and disappointment were the only results.’
The Cape Fear expedition failed from ignorance of the depth of the river.
When Lord George Germain became one of his Majesty’s principal
Secretaries of State, November 10, a commission was issued under the great

seal ‘for the restoration of public tranquillity among his Majesty’s deluded
subjects in the affected colonies.’ A proclamation said: ‘Apprised of the
fatal consequence of the conduct they had adopted, and seeing the
determined spirit of the nation to maintain its constitutional rights, they will
avail themselves of the means which the justice and benevolence of the
supreme legislature have held out to them of being restored to the King’s
grace and peace.’ This failed utterly, from ignorance of the depth of
opposition in the colonies. Boston was evacuated in March 1776, and Mr.
Thompson was sent to England with the news. He was probably thought
perfectly qualified to answer every question relative to his Majesty’s
service. Cuvier says, ‘La bonne mine du jeune officier, la netteté et
l’étendue des renseignements qu’il donna, prévinrent en sa faveur le
secrétaire d’État au département de l’Amérique.’ His news caused no great
distress, and his information must have reassured the minister, for even in
June Lord G. Germain and the Prime Minister wrote to General Howe on
the good prospect of an end being put to the rebellion in one campaign. It
was the good news from Canada that helped to deceive them.
Mr. Thompson was taken into Lord George Germain’s office, and he was
appointed Secretary of the Province of Georgia.
In the autumn of 1777 Thompson was at Bath for his health, drinking the
waters. Whilst there he made some experiments on the cohesive strength of
different substances. These led to no great results, but he communicated
them to Sir Joseph Banks, the new President of the Royal Society.
Sir W. Howe was at this time asking for large reinforcements. He thus wrote
to Lord G. Germain from Philadelphia:
‘From the little attention, my Lord, given to my recommendations since the
commencement of my command, I am led to hope that I may be relieved
from this very painful service wherein I have not the good fortune to enjoy
the necessary confidence and support of my superiors, but which I conclude
will be extended to Sir Henry Clinton, my presumptive successor.’
In 1778 Mr. Thompson was with Lord G. Germain at his house, Stoneland
Lodge, Sussex. Whilst there Thompson made experiments on testing
gunpowder, and on a new method of determining the velocity of projectiles.
The results were sent to the Royal Society, in 1781, and were published at

great length in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ One good observation is
now of great interest. ‘Being much struck with the accidental discovery of
the great degree of heat that pieces acquire when they are fired with powder
without any bullet, and being desirous of finding out whether it is a
circumstance that obtains universally, I was very attentive to the heat of the
barrel after each of the succeeding experiments, and I constantly found the
heat sensibly greater when the piece was fired with powder only than when
the same charge was made to impel one or more bullets.’
In order to pursue these experiments he went in 1779, on board of the
‘Victory,’ of 110 guns, commanded by his friend Sir Charles Hardy. He
passed the whole of the campaign on board of the fleet, and the result of the
observations that he then made furnished the materials for a chapter which
he contributed to Stalkart’s ‘Treatise on Naval Architecture.’ He added to it
a code of signals for the navy, which was not published. In his paper on
gunpowder, read in 1797 to the Royal Society, he says:

During a cruise which I made, as a volunteer, in the ‘Victory,’ with the
British fleet, under the command of my late worthy friend Sir Charles
Hardy, in the year 1779, I had many opportunities of attending to the
firing of heavy cannon; for though we were not fortunate enough to
come to a general action with the enemy, as is well known, yet, as the
men were frequently exercised at the great guns and in firing at marks,
and as some of my friends in the fleet, then captains (since made
admirals), as the Honourable Keith Stewart, who commanded the
‘Berwick,’ of 74 guns,—Sir Charles Douglas, who commanded the
‘Duke,’ of 98 guns,—and Admiral Macbride, who was then captain of
the ‘Bienfaisant,’ of 64 guns, were kind enough, at my request, to
make a number of experiments, and particularly by firing a greater
number of bullets at once from their heavy guns than ever had been
done before, and observing the distances at which they fell in the sea,
—I had opportunities of making several very interesting observations,
which gave me much new light relative to the action of fired
gunpowder.

In 1778 Mr. Thompson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Great must have been the trouble in his office this year. In October 1778,
Sir H. Clinton wrote to Lord G. Germain from New York that he was about
to send, as he was ordered, ten thousand men to the West Indies and St.
Augustine. ‘After a wound in my humble opinion so fatal to the hopes of
any future vigour in this army, I trust, my Lord, you cannot wish to keep me
in the mortifying command of it.’ ‘You cannot, I am confident, my Lord,
desire that I should remain a mournful witness of the debility of an army at
whose head, had I been unshackled by instructions, I might have indulged
expectations of rendering serious service to my country.’
Lord G. Germain thought that much good would be done by encouraging
the provincial forces, and by promising to the provincial officers half-pay
and permanent rank in America.
On January 23, 1779, he wrote to Sir H. Clinton: ‘It is likewise his
Majesty’s pleasure that you publish and make known to his provincial
corps, as also to all others his loyal subjects in America, his gracious
intention to support and protect them by making the rank of the officers
permanent in America, and allowing them half-pay upon the reduction of
their regiments, in the same manner as the officers of British reduced
regiments are paid.’
This order for promotion immediately excited the discontent of the officers
in the army. In their memorial to Sir H. Clinton they ask him ‘to prevent our
being superseded by officers of yesterday who have served under us.’
In 1780 proposals were made to Lord G. Germain to revive the Association
of Loyalists in America, ‘so that Government, at a very moderate expense,
might be served by a considerable number of men, and Captain Murray
offered on behalf of Brigadier Ruggles, who had been Brigadier-General of
Provincial Forces in America during the last war, Deputy Surveyor-General
of the Woods, and late his Majesty’s council in the province of
Massachusetts Bay in New England, to raise and to command a regiment of
light dragoons, to be called the King’s American Dragoons.’
Lord G. Germain wrote to Sir H. Clinton, June 7, 1780, from Whitehall:

The services of Brigadier Ruggles in the last war, and the influence he
still retains in those provinces of North America, where his character,

his honour, and his name are respected, made me long desirous of
seeing that gentleman engaged in the King’s service. The enclosed
plan of raising a regiment of dragoons was communicated to me by
Captain Murray, by authority of Brigadier Ruggles. It appeared to me
so fair and so disinterested, that I laid it before his Majesty, and it so
far met with his royal approbation that he permitted me to transmit the
plan to you. And if the public service requires any provincial cavalry to
be raised, his Majesty would be pleased to see Mr. Ruggles placed at
the head of such a corps, where he may have an opportunity of again
acting with that zeal and spirit which formerly did him so much
honour.

In September 1780 Mr. Thompson was made Under-Secretary of State for
the Northern Department by Lord George Germain.
In May 1781 the Inspector-General of Provincial Forces wrote to the Under-
Secretary, Thompson, to say that the distress for the want of cavalry
appointments was beyond conception. ‘Had all the appointments,’ he says,
‘for Brigadier-General Ruggles come out, it would have afforded us a small
temporary supply; but only twenty-five helmets have yet appeared.’
Lord G. Germain then moved the Treasury to send fresh and large supplies,
and said he had directed Mr. Thompson, the Deputy Inspector-General of
Provincial Forces, to procure patterns and estimates and to give
information. Lord North, Lord Palmerston, and Sir R. Sutton referred the
question of quality and quantity to the Adjutant-General, who reported that
‘it would be doing injustice to Mr. Thompson not to declare that, as far as
my judgment goes, he will not only gain great credit for himself, but at the
same time essentially serve the public by his disinterested and very attentive
execution of the trust that has been reposed in him on this occasion.’ Their
lordships directed Mr. Thompson forthwith to provide the several articles
mentioned, and allowed him one and a half per cent. commission. The sum
he received at this time was one hundred and twenty pounds.
Among the exiles in London was Judge Curwen, of Salem, Massachusetts.
He kept a journal, and in it he gives a picture of Thompson, May 23, 1781:

On returning home I found a letter from Arthur Savage, informing me
of Mr. Thompson’s compliments and wish to see me at eleven o’clock
to-morrow at his lodgings.
May 24.—Went early, in order to be at Mr. Benjamin Thompson’s in
time, and being a little before, heard he was not returned from Lord
George Germain’s, where he always breakfasts, dines, and sups, so
great a favourite is he. To kill half an hour, I loitered to the park
through the palace, and on second return found him at his lodgings. He
received me in a friendly manner, taking me by the hand, talked with
great freedom, and promised to remember and serve me in the way I
proposed to him [probably the securing the continuance of his
allowance unreduced]. Promises are easily made, and genteel delusive
encouragement, the staple article of trade, belonging to the courtier’s
profession, I put no hopes on the fair appearances of outward
behaviour, though it is uncandid to suppose all mean to deceive. Some
wish to do a service who have it not in their power; all wish to be
thought of importance and significancy, and this often leads to deceit.
This young man, when a shop-lad to my next neighbour, ever appeared
active, good-natured, and sensible; by a strange concurrence of events,
he is now Under-Secretary to the American Secretary of State, Lord
George Germain, a secretary to Georgia, inspector of all the clothing
sent to America, and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of Horse
Dragoons at New York. His income arising from these sources is, I
have been told, near seven thousand a year—a sum infinitely beyond
his most sanguine expectations. He is, besides, a member of the Royal
Society. It is said he is of an ingenious turn, an inventive imagination,
and, by being on a cruise in Channel service with Sir Charles Hardy,
has formed a more regular and better-digested system for signals than
that heretofore used. He seems to be of a happy, even temper in
general deportment, and reported of an excellent heart; peculiarly
respectful to Americans that fall in his way.

This statement of the income of Thompson was certainly enormously
exaggerated. That about this time he was appointed to the King’s American
Dragoons the following autograph letter, now in the library of the Royal
Institution, shows:

FROM LORD GEORGE GERMAIN TO SIR H. CLINTON.
Stoneland Lodge, September 30, 1781.
Sir,—I beg leave to introduce Mr. Thompson to you, and at the same
time to thank you for the favour and protection which you have shewn
him in giving him the command of a regiment of light dragoons,
which, I trust, will be raised in a manner to entitle the officers of it to
your approbation. Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson shows at least a spirit
and zeal for the service, in quitting for a time an agreeable and
profitable civil situation, in the hopes of being useful to his country,
and by his military conduct, shewing himself not unworthy of the
protection which you have granted to him. If you do him the honour to
converse with him, you will find him well informed, and, as far as
theory goes, a good officer in whatever you may think fit to employ
him. I can answer for his honour and his ability, and I am persuaded he
will ever feel himself attached by gratitude to you for the very kind
and obliging manner in which you have protected him and the
regiment under his command.
I am, Sir, with great regard, your Excellency’s faithful, humble servant,
George Germain.

On October 4, 1781, Colonel Thompson appointed Mr. Fisher, a clerk in his
office, as his attorney, to receive his pay (thirteen shillings daily) and to
attend to his clothing commission. He soon after left England in the
‘Rotterdam,’ a fifty-gun ship, for New York, but contrary winds compelled
him to disembark at Charlestown (South Carolina).
In his paper on Gunpowder he shows that he was busy during his passage:

His Majesty having been graciously pleased to permit me to take out
with me from England four pieces of light artillery, constructed under
the direction of the late Lieutenant-General Desaguliers, with a large
proportion of ammunition, I made a great number of interesting
experiments with these guns, and also with the ship’s guns on board
the ships of war in which I made my passage to and from America.

He arrived towards the end of December. Lord Cornwallis had surrendered,
and Charlestown, in Carolina, was in great danger for want of
reinforcements and food.
Early in 1782 Lord G. Germain wrote to General Leslie, who commanded
at Charlestown: ‘I agree with you that mounted troops are the fittest for
service in the southern provinces, but I cannot encourage you to expect that
any will be sent from home; I am glad, however, you will have Colonel
Thompson’s assistance in forming what you have. His offer to serve in your
army until the season for action to the northward arrives corresponds with
that public spirit and zeal for the King’s service which prompted him to quit
his civil situation and engage in the military line.’
General Leslie wrote to Sir H. Clinton, January 29: ‘The army is now well
clothed and recovered from the sickness and fatigue it underwent during the
last summer.
‘The several detached corps of cavalry have been incorporated into distinct
ones under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson. From the
unwearied attention and diligent efforts of that officer they are become
respectable, and I have everything to expect from this improvement.’
On February 20 Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson wrote to the Honourable
Lieutenant-General Leslie that he has not been so fortunate as to meet with
the enemy he had come in search of; but the following despatch was sent by
him on February 25, 1782:

Duxcent’s Plantation, Monday, February 25, 1782.
Sir,—I did not expect, after the affair of yesterday, the enemy would
so soon have put it in my power to congratulate you upon another
defeat of their troops by those which you have done me the honour to
put under my command. We had the good fortune this morning to fall
in with a chosen corps, under the command of General Marion in
person, which we attacked and totally routed, killing a considerable
number of them, taking sixteen prisoners, and driving General Marion
and the greatest part of his army into the Santee, where it is probable a
great many of them perished.

After resting and refreshing our horses at the plantation where we
halted last night, at nine o’clock this morning the cavalry marched
back to the Santee, to the ground where we fell in with the enemy
yesterday. The infantry marched at the same time for this place, and we
promised to join them in the afternoon.
We had advanced about nine miles from the place we left in the
morning, when, coming in through a gate-way to the cleared grounds
of a plantation, we discovered the enemy about three hundred yards
distant, directly in front of us, drawn up in the area between the negroe
huts belonging to the plantation.
As soon as the troops were formed I ordered a charge to be sounded,
and the line moved forwards. The enemy also sounded a charge, but,
instead of coming out to meet us, they were discovered going off by
their right in the greatest hurry and confusion, and attempting to gain a
swamp that was upon the banks of the river on that side. We
immediately charged after them at full speed, and had the good fortune
to come up in time to cut off a great part of their rear. Those that
gained the swamp were pursued, and many of them were killed in
attempting to get into the river, and others were shot and drowned in
attempting to swim to the opposite shore. We took near forty horses,
many of which are capital chargers.
After the action we collected at our leisure all the cattle from the rebel
plantations in that quarter, and have sent them down the road with a
proper escort. We shall follow as soon as the troops are refreshed.
In this last affair with the enemy, as well as during the whole time I
have had the honour to command this detachment, the troops, both
officers and men, have behaved in such a manner as to merit my
warmest acknowledgment.
I have the honour to be, with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient
and most humble servant,
R. Thompson.

In the general orders on March 1 the General expressed to the army the
opinion he entertained of the merit of Colonel Thompson’s conduct upon
this occasion, and of the spirited behaviour of the troops, and to Sir H.
Clinton he wrote, March 12, 1782:

I had the honour to inform your Excellency that Lieutenant-Colonel
Thompson having offered his service during his stay here, I had
appointed him to the command of the cavalry. He has put them in
exceeding good order and gained their confidence and affection. I am
very happy to inform your Excellency of his success in a late
excursion upon the Santee. [An account of the action is then given in
the despatch.] I enclose to your Excellency Colonel Thompson’s report
to me of this very handsome piece of service, and I assure your
Excellency that I have much regret to part with this enterprising young
officer, who appears to have an uncommon share of merit and zeal for
the service; and could he and his corps be spared to act in this part,
where cavalry are so much wanted, I am confident it would tend much
to the benefit of his Majesty’s service.

Despatches of this date show that in council also Thompson was as efficient
as in the field.
General Leslie wrote to Sir H. Clinton:

I beg to know your Excellency’s opinion with regard to our putting
arms into the hands of the negroes. I have desired Colonel Thompson
to speak with your Excellency upon the subject, and to make known to
you the particulars of our situation in that respect.

On April 11 Colonel Thompson arrived at New York.
Four days afterwards Sir H. Clinton wrote to General Leslie: ‘Those parts
of your letters to which you have referred for a more full explanation to
Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson, I shall answer after consulting with him
upon the subject;’ and he also says: ‘With respect to the disagreeable
predicament which you mention Lieutenant-Colonel Balfour and other
officers of rank in the Southern army stand in on account of Mr. Green’s

threats for Colonel Hayne’s execution, I shall consult Lieutenant-Colonel
Thompson, and let you know my sentiments by the earliest opportunity.’
At this time Sir H. Clinton was about to give up the command he had so
often petitioned to resign. He had ‘lamented that his happiness was
sacrificed to prevent the partial inconvenience which might have arisen
from a change,’ and later he wrote: ‘His Majesty’s assent to my petition will
crown the many favours of which my heart will ever retain the most
grateful remembrance.’
On February 6 General Robinson was appointed to succeed Sir H. Clinton,
and soon after Sir Guy Carleton took the command.
Colonel Thompson’s chief business was to complete his regiment, which
was encamped about three miles from Flushing, in Long Island. There, on
August 1, colours were presented to the regiment by Prince William, then a
boy of eighteen in the Royal Navy, accompanied by Admiral Digby. On the
6th, on behalf of himself and the officers of the King’s American Dragoons,
Colonel Thompson petitioned Sir Guy Carleton to order them to enjoy the
advantages stipulated on the completion of the regiment; and at the end of
August Sir Guy Carleton notifies in the general orders that Colonel
Thompson and his officers are entitled to permanent rank in America.
In September Colonel Thompson’s name is to be found first on a list of six
agents, selected to act for them by those Royalists who were willing to
emigrate with their families from Long Island to Nova Scotia.
Two months later it appears, from a bill, that he was building chimneys in
the barracks at Huntingdon, Long Island, where his regiment was stationed,
when the treaty of peace between America and England was made in Paris
without the consent and even without the knowledge of France.
In December every preparation was made for a sudden attack of the French
upon New York, and orders were issued by General Robinson in case that
event took place. Alarm posts for each of the different corps and the details
of the duties of each corps were arranged. ‘If an attack was made on
Huntingdon, the troops were immediately to assemble and march to the
support of Colonel Thompson.’

Early in the spring active measures were proposed against the French in the
West Indies. Peace with France stopped these plans, and on April 11, 1783,
Colonel Thompson obtained leave of absence, in order that he might return
to London to urge the claims of the provincial officers to rank and to half-
pay.
Some original documents in the appendix to this chapter will show the
energy, the ability, and the perseverance of Colonel Thompson when he
arrived in London.
On August 17 Sir Guy Carleton issued an order that all the men who wished
to be discharged in America, should hold themselves in readiness to embark
for Nova Scotia; and in October the King’s American Dragoons were
disbanded on the lands appropriated to them, many miles up the river St.
John, on the north side of the Bay of Fundy.
On October 25, 1783, Colonel Thompson’s half-pay began, and it continued
for the remainder of his life. He had at this time began a new career. He
determined to go abroad, intending to take part in a war which was then
expected between Austria and the Turks.
Gibbon wrote from Dover, September 17, 1783, to Lord Sheffield:

Last night the wind was so high that the vessel could not stir from the
harbour; this day it is brisk and fair. We are flattered with the hope of
making Calais Harbour by the same tide in three hours and a half, but
any delay will leave the disagreeable option of a tottering boat or a
tossing night. What a cursed thing to live in an island! this step is more
awkward than the whole journey. The triumvirate of this memorable
embarkation will consist of the grand Gibbon, Henry Laurens, Esq.,
President of Congress, and Mr. Secretary, Colonel, Admiral,
Philosopher Thompson, attended by three horses, who are not the most
agreeable fellow-passengers. If we survive, I will finish and seal my
letter at Calais. Our salvation shall be ascribed to the prayers of my
lady and aunt, for I do believe they both pray.

Boulogne.

Instead of Calais the wind has driven us to Boulogne, where we landed
in the evening, without much noise and difficulty.... Laurens has read
the pamphlet, and thinks it has done much mischief. A good sign![2]

Professor Pictet, of Geneva, has published in the ‘Bibliothèque universelle’
the notes he made of a conversation with Count Rumford regarding his life
at this time. He says:

A purely accidental circumstance had a decisive influence over his
destiny. He arrived at Strasburg, where the Prince Maximilian of Deux
Ponts, now [1801] Elector of Bavaria, then Field-Marshal in the
service of France, was in garrison. This prince, commanding on
parade, sees among the spectators an officer in a foreign uniform,
mounted on a fine English horse, whom he addresses. Thompson
informs him that he comes from serving in the American war. The
Prince, in pointing out to him many officers who surround him, says,
‘These gentlemen were in the same war, but against you; they
belonged to the Royal Regiment of Deux Ponts, that acted in America
under the orders of Count Rochambeau.’
They engaged in conversation, which became very animated. Colonel
Thompson being invited to dine with the Prince, met at the table a
number of French officers whom he had encountered on the field in
America. They talked at length of the events of this war. The Colonel
produced his portfolio, which contained exact plans of the principal
engagements, the forts, the sieges, and an excellent collection of maps.
One and another recognised the place or the interesting incident which
was recalled to him. They conversed a long while, and separated
promising to meet again. The Prince was passionately devoted to his
profession and intensely eager for information. He invited the Colonel
for the next day. They resumed with the same zest the conversation of
yesterday. When at last the traveller took leave, the Prince engaged
him to pass through Munich, and gave him a friendly letter to the
Elector of Bavaria, his uncle.
The season was advanced, and he was in haste to reach Vienna. He had
promised to stop at Munich two or three days at most; but he passed
there five days, and then did not leave but with regret a city where the

tokens of the regard of the sovereign and the attentions of different
classes of society were extended to him with that frank cordiality
which so eminently distinguishes the Bavarian nation. He received
equally at Vienna the most flattering welcome, and was presented at
Court and mingled in the first society. There he passed a part of the
winter, and, learning that the war against the Turks was not to be
carried on, he yielded to the attractive memories of Munich, and,
passing through Venice, where he stopped some weeks, and by the
Tyrol, he returned to Brompton by the end of the winter of 1783-84.

In February he was knighted by George the Third, and he received
permission to enter into the service of the Duke of Bavaria.
From Munich, July 6, Thompson wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, to tell him that
his Electoral Highness had been asked to become a Fellow of the Royal
Society. He said:

I should have done myself the honour to have written to you upon this
subject some time ago, but I waited for a favourable opportunity to
speak to his Electoral Highness about it.
It was only a few days since I came into waiting as aide-de-camp to his
Most Serene Highness. I shall continue about his person till
September, when I purpose making a tour for a couple of months in the
mountains of Tyrol, upon the confines of Bavaria, and the dominions
of the Bishop of Saltzburg, a country extremely interesting in several
points of view.

He gave his direction as ‘M. le Chevalier Thompson, colonel et aide-
de-camp général au service de S.A.S. l’Élect. Palatin, Duc de Bavière.’
He ended, ‘I am, dear Sir, with sincere regard and respect, your most
obedient and most humble servant.’

He again wrote to Sir Joseph Banks on July 24. He began by asking if he
could have one of the two hundred medals for Cook’s voyages given to

Fellows of the Royal Society, and he ended with a postscript:

I beg you would make my best compliments to Mr. Blagden when you
see him, and tell him I hope he will not entirely forget an old
correspondent who remembers him with great affection.

Cuvier, in his éloge of Count Rumford, says of the Electors of Bavaria:

Les souverains agrandis à l’époque des guerres de religion, par suite de
leur zèle pour le catholicisme, avaient longtemps porté les marques de
ce zèle bien au-delà de ce que réclame un catholicisme éclairé: ils
encourageaient la dévotion et ne faisaient rien pour l’industrie; on
comptait dans leurs états plus de couvents que de fabriques. L’armée y
était à peu près nulle; l’ignorance et l’inertie dominaient dans toutes
les classes de la société.

The first work in Bavaria of Sir Benjamin Thompson was to rearrange the
military service and introduce a new system of order, discipline, and
economy among the troops. In the execution of this commission he says: ‘I
was ever mindful of that great and important truth that no political
arrangement can be really good except in so far as it contributes to the
general good of society. I have endeavoured to unite the interest of the
soldier with the interest of civil society, and to render the military force,
even in the times of peace, subservient to the public good.’ To make soldiers
citizens, and citizens soldiers, the soldier was better paid, better clothed,
better housed, better taught, better occupied, better amused, and, above all,
allowed to earn money and to spend it as he pleased. Fixed garrisons were
formed, and the army was used as a means of introducing useful
improvements into the country. Thus military gardens were formed to
introduce the culture of the potato. Workhouses for manufacturing clothing
for the army were founded, first at Mannheim for the troops of the
Palatinate and Duchies of Juliers and Bergen, and a few months afterwards
at Munich for the fifteen Bavarian regiments. The greatest order and
economy were used in the military manufactory and magazine, and after six
years Sir B. Thompson wrote that the net profit on the various trades and
manufactures in the Munich Workhouse up to that time was 100,000 florins;
and he could refer to its growing reputation, its extensive connexions,
which reached even to foreign countries, to the punctuality with which all

its engagements were fulfilled, to its unimpeached credit, and to its growing
wealth. The amount of orders executed in the sixth year of its establishment
did not fall much short of half a million of florins.
Among the various measures that occurred to Sir B. Thompson by which
the military of the country might be made subservient to the public good in
time of peace, ‘none,’ he says, ‘appeared to me of so much importance as
that of employing the army in clearing the country of beggars, thieves, and
other vagabonds, and in watching over the public tranquillity.’
The beggars swarmed everywhere. They were dissolute, sturdy, shameless,
importunate robbers.
A system of mounted police was formed throughout the country by four
regiments of cavalry. Means were taken, first, to furnish suitable
employment for those who were able to work; and, secondly, to provide the
necessary assistance for those who, from age, sickness, or other bodily
infirmities, were unable by their industry to provide for themselves.
‘To make vicious and abandoned people happy, it has generally been
supposed necessary first to make them virtuous. But why not reverse this
order? Why not make them first happy and then virtuous?’
A large building, once a manufactory, was taken in one of the suburbs of
Munich; arrangements were made for a kitchen, an eating-room, a
bakehouse, workshops for carpenters, smiths, turners, tool-makers, spinners
of cotton wool and worsted, for weavers of all kinds, a dyers’ shop, a fulling
mill, a washhouse.
Everything was done that could be desired to make the inmates really
comfortable by good food, raiment, and cleanliness. The rooms were
scrupulously clean, well warmed, and well lighted; the people were well
fed, well taught, and well paid for their work. ‘They had the kindest usage
from every person, from the highest to the lowest. No ill usage, no harsh
language, was permitted; and at the end of five years not a blow had been
given to anyone, not even to a child by its instructor,’ and Sir B. Thompson
could say: ‘The pleasure I have had in the success of this experiment is
much easier to be conceived than described; would to God that my success
might encourage others to follow my example! If it were generally known

how little trouble and how little expense are required to do much good (the
heartfelt satisfaction which arises from relieving the wants and promoting
the happiness of our fellow-creatures is so great), I am persuaded acts of the
most essential charity would be much more frequent, and the mass of
misery among mankind would consequently be much lessened.’
New Year’s Day having been long specially set apart for giving alms early
that morning in 1790, three regiments of infantry, with their officers, were
stationed in the streets, and Sir B. Thompson assembled the magistrates and
asked their assistance to take up all the beggars and to provide for the poor.
Accompanied by the chief magistrate, he went into the street, and the first
beggar who asked for alms he arrested with his own hands, and orders were
given to all the other officers, who also were accompanied with magistrates,
to do the same. In less than an hour no beggar was to be found in the streets.
They were taken to the Town Hall, inscribed in printed lists, and then told to
go to the newly-erected Military Workhouse. An address was opened to the
public, asking for perfectly voluntary subscriptions to put an end to
begging; monthly sums were given, and daily supplies of bread, meat, and
soup were collected.[3]
Several good spinners of hemp were engaged at the House of Industry, and
this was the first occupation of the poor. Knitting, sewing, and carding wool
were early occupations, but the object to be desired was woollen work for
the clothing of the army. If the poor did well, they were rewarded; if they
came late, their food was lessened. They slept at their own homes, and
when ill they received relief at home. Everything was done to encourage
industry and emulation. ‘To incite activity and inspire with a true spirit of
persevering industry, it was necessary to fire the poor with emulation—to
awaken in them a dormant passion whose influence they had never felt; the
love of honest fame; an ardent desire to excel, the love of glory, or by what
other pompous name this passion, the most noble and most beneficent that
warms the human heart, can be distinguished.’[4]
To excite emulation praise, distinctions, rewards are necessary; and these
were all employed.
The House of Industry for the Poor and the Military Workhouse were quite
separate in their management, though they were so dependent on each other

that neither of them could subsist alone; one building served for both.
Twice yearly small sums were given to the poor to assist them in paying for
lodgings, and ultimately a large house was bought and fitted up as an
hospital for those who were infirm and unable to take care of themselves.
Means were adopted for giving relief to those who never were beggars, but
who, from poverty and inability to provide the necessaries of life, were
involved in distresses and difficulties which they bore in silence.
Persons of distinguished birth even sent to the House of Industry at Munich
for flax, or wool, or linen, which they manufactured into goods, and
received the usual amount of wages; and some who had been accustomed to
sumptuous fare took the soup furnished gratis from the public kitchen to the
poor.
The warming, lighting, clothing, feeding, occupying the poor, seemed the
sole object of all Sir B. Thompson thought and of all he did. His success
must be told in his own words.

My hopes of engaging others to follow my example are chiefly
founded upon my success in the enterprise. Then why should I not
mention even the marks of affectionate regard and respect which I
received from the poor people for whose happiness I interested
myself? And will it be reckoned vanity if I mention the concern which
the poor of Munich expressed in so affecting a manner when I was
dangerously ill? That they went publicly in a body in procession to the
cathedral church, where they had divine service performed, and put up
public prayers for my delivery. That four years afterwards, on hearing
that I was again dangerously ill at Naples, they of their own accord set
apart an hour each evening after they had finished their work in the
Military Workhouse to pray for me.
Let the reader, if he can, picture my situation. Sick in bed, worn out by
intense application, and dying, as everybody thought, a martyr in the
cause to which I had devoted myself, let him imagine, I say, my
feelings upon hearing the confused noise of the prayers of a multitude
of people, who were passing by in the streets, upon being told that it
was the poor of Munich, many hundreds in number, who were going in

procession to the church to put up public prayers for me; public
prayers for me! for a private person, a stranger, a Protestant! I believe
it is the first instance of the kind that ever happened; and I dare venture
to affirm that no proof could well be stronger than this that the
measures adopted for making these poor people happy were really
successful; and let it be remembered that this fact is what I am most
anxious to make appear IN THE CLEAREST AND MOST SATISFACTORY
MANNER.

Cuvier says: ‘Il convient lui-même que cet acte spontané de reconnaissance
religieuse en faveur d’un homme d’une autre communion lui parut la plus
touchante des récompenses; mais il ne se dissimulait pas qu’il en avait
obtenu une autre qui sera plus durable. En effet, c’est en travaillant pour les
pauvres qu’il a fait ses plus belles découvertes....
‘Chacun sait que dans ses plus belles espérances on eut pour objet la nature
de la chaleur et de la lumière, ainsi que les lois de leur propagation; et
c’était là effectivement ce qu’il importait le plus de bien connaître pour
nourrir, vêtir, chauffer et éclairer avec économie un grand rassemblement
d’hommes.’
Other measures for the benefit of the country were carried out at the same
time.
A Military Academy was formed, principally with a view to bring forward
extraordinary talents and employ them in the civil or military public
service. Anyone was admissible. The children of the meanest mechanics
and day-labourers, provided they had very extraordinary natural genius, a
healthy constitution, and a good character, were educated. It was an
establishment designed for the encouragement of genius, and for calling
forth into public utility talents which would otherwise remain buried and
lost in obscurity.
Measures were adopted for improving the breed of horses and horned cattle
in Bavaria and the Palatinate. An attempt was made to put an end to usury
in Munich and to improve the highways and public roads, by employing the
soldiery in repairing them and preserving order and public tranquillity on
them.

A new English Garden was formed, beginning upon the ramparts of the
town. It was nearly six English miles in circumference. Within the Garden
was a fine and very valuable farm, with thirty of the finest cows procured
from Switzerland, Flanders, the Tyrol, and other places. There was a public
coffee-house in the middle of the Garden for refreshment and public resort.
The scientific work which Sir B. Thompson did whilst in the service of the
Elector of Bavaria between 1783 and 1794, shows his energy and
originality, his accuracy and his depth.
When at Mannheim in July 1785 he made experiments in the presence of
Professor Hemmer, of the Electoral Academy of Sciences of Mannheim, on
the propagation of heat through various substances; on the increased
difficulty of conduction of heat through the torricellian vacuum; on the
effect of humidity in increasing the conducting power of the air; and on the
effect of air of different degrees of density. The Duke ordered the
meteorological instrument maker to the academy at Mannheim to come to
Munich, and to spare neither labour nor expense in providing the complete
apparatus necessary for the experiments.
These experiments, on the relative conducting powers of mercury, water,
air, and a torricellian vacuum, were read to the Royal Society, March 9,
1786.
He then proceeded to make experiments on the relative warmth of various
substances used in making artificial clothing; relative quantities of the same
substance; different qualities of substance chemically, as charcoal, ashes,
dust. All his experiments indicated that the air which occupies the
interstices of substances used in forming coverings for confining heat acts a
very important part in that operation. Air is a perfect non-conductor of heat.
These experiments were chiefly made in 1787. They were not read before
the Royal Society until January 19, 1792.
Early in the winter of 1787, as soon as the cold was sufficiently intense, he
began to repeat the experiments of Dr. Fordyce (‘Transactions of the Royal
Society,’ vol. lxxv.) on the weight said to be acquired by water in the act of
freezing; and, being possessed of a most excellent balance belonging to the
Duke of Bavaria, he soon came to the conclusion that all attempts to

discover any effect of heat upon the apparent weights of bodies would be
fruitless.
He had previously, in April 1785, convinced himself of the errors that arose
from currents of air and from the drying of the cords by which the scales
were hung.
These experiments were made into a paper entitled ‘An Inquiry concerning
the Weight Ascribed to Heat.’ This was read before the Royal Society, May
2, 1799.
In May and June 1786 he made experiments on the production of air from
water exposed to light. These were read before the Royal Society, February
15, 1787.
When engaged in his experiments on the conducting powers of various
bodies with respect to heat, and particularly of such substances as are used
for clothing, he made experiments on the relation between their conducting
power and their power of absorbing moisture, but found none. Flannel and
fur, contrary to his expectation, absorbed much more moisture from the air
than silk and cotton. On this he forms an idea of the good of wearing
flannel. This, the weakest of his papers, was read to the Royal Society,
March 22, 1787.
In the spring of 1791 a large building was erected in the neighbourhood of
Munich, on the ground destined for the exercise of the artillery, where a
most complete apparatus was put up for measuring the velocities of cannon
bullets by the recoil of the gun, and also by the pendulum at the same time,
and with this apparatus a great number of interesting experiments were
made.
He observed that the force of the charge was always sensibly increased
when the gun was discharged by firing a pistol (constructed for that use)
into the vent, instead of using a priming and a common match for firing off
the gun.
These experiments were continued in 1792, and in 1793 they were shown to
Dr. Blagden, who was in Munich during the absence of Sir B. Thompson in
Italy for his health.

The principal objects in view were to determine the expansive force of the
elastic vapour generated in the combustion of gunpowder in its various
states of condensation, and to ascertain the ratio of its elasticity to its
density, and to measure the utmost force of this fluid in its most dense state.
In order to find the most economical method of lighting his Workhouse at
Munich, he devised a new way of measuring the relative quantities of lights
by their shadows. His arbitrary standard was a London made Argand lamp.
He first experimented on the resistance of air to light, then on the loss of
light in its passage through different kinds of glass, and in its reflection
from a plate glass mirror, then on the relative quantities of oil burnt by
different lamps and relative quantities of light emitted by different
substances, and lastly on the transparency of flame.
He made these experiments into a paper on the ‘Relative Intensities of the
Light Emitted by Luminous Bodies,’ and it was read before the Royal
Society, February 6, 1794; and on February 20 another paper was read,
being an ‘Account of some Experiments on Coloured Shadows,’ and he
came to the conclusion that our eyes are not always to be believed, even
with respect to the presence or absence of colours.
For his national and scientific work he received various honours between
1783 and 1794.
In 1785 he was elected member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences,
which had been established in 1758, and he was made chamberlain to the
Elector.
In 1786 the King of Poland, at the request of the Elector of Bavaria,
conferred on him the Order of St. Stanislaus. This was done because the
statutes of Bavaria did not allow a foreigner to receive any national
honours.
In 1787, when in Prussia, he was made a member of the Berlin Academy of
Sciences.
In 1788 the Elector made him Major-General of Cavalry and Privy
Councillor of State, and he was placed at the head of the war department.

On May 29, 1789, he was elected a foreign honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he was made Lieutenant-
General of the Bavarian Armies and received the command of a regiment of
artillery.
In 1791, in the interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and the
coronation of Leopold II., the Elector of Bavaria was one of the Vicars of
the Empire, and he made Sir Benjamin Thompson a Count of the Holy
Roman Empire, and gave him the Order of the White Eagle.
Early in the following year the wife of Count Rumford, who had been a
great invalid, and who had lived with her son by her first husband and with
her daughter, the child of Rumford, died at the age of 52. Her own property
had given her every comfort that her ill health required.
At the end of this year Count Rumford was in correspondence with his early
friend Colonel Baldwin, through whom probably for some time previously
he had sent money to his mother. He wrote to Colonel Baldwin from
Munich, January 18, 1793:

You could hardly conceive the heartfelt satisfaction it would give me
to pay a visit to my native country. Should I be kindly received? Are
the remains of party spirit and political persecutions done away?
Would it be necessary to ask leave of the State?
It is possible you may see me at Woburn before you are aware of it. I
wish exceedingly to be personally acquainted with my daughter. I wish
to know her real character, and how I must go to work to lay a solid
foundation for her future happiness. I wish once more to have the
satisfaction of seeing my most kind and affectionate mother. I wish to
prove to her how dear she is to me, and how grateful I am for all her
goodness to me. My dear, beloved parent! What would I give to see
her, were it but for one hour! I should be much obliged to you for any
accounts you may from time to time send me of her situation, and of
others, my friends, in your neighbourhood. Desiring to be remembered
to all those of my old acquaintance who interest themselves in my
welfare, I am, my dear Sir, with unfeigned regard and much esteem,
yours most affectionately.

Count Rumford, in the spring of 1793, left Munich for Italy on account of
his health. He was absent sixteen months. At Verona the directors of the two
great hospitals La Pieta and La Misericordia, containing 350 and 500 poor,
accepted his offer to rebuild the kitchens. Seven-eighths of the fire-wood
were saved, and he made arrangements to supply the poor with clothing
from the Munich House of Industry at a saving of twenty per cent.
On May 11, 1793, Sir C. Blagden, who was travelling with Lord
Palmerston, wrote to Sir Joseph Banks from Rome:

Count Rumford is come into Italy. I have just received a very friendly
letter from him, in which he desires me to appoint a meeting. It will
probably be at Milan.

Three months later he wrote from Augsburg:

Thompson, now Count Rumford, met me by appointment at Pavia.
Volta showed us his experiments on animal electricity, and said he had
sent off his paper for the Royal Society about three weeks before,
probably not time enough for it to be read before the vacation. I
thought his experiments proved that there is no particular animal
electricity, and that the animals serve only the purpose of very delicate
electrometers; but they leave other circumstances unexplained.

On his return to London Sir C. Blagden wrote on November 21 to Sir
Joseph Banks:

From Italy I brought two papers by Count Rumford, one on ‘Coloured
Shadows,’ the other on a ‘Method of Measuring the Comparative
Intensities of the Light Emitted by Luminous Bodies.’ In the former he
shows neatly enough that the colours ascribed to these shadows
depend entirely on comparing them with light of another colour. The
method referred to in the second paper is that of the intensity of the
shadows produced by the different luminous bodies. These two papers
will furnish matter for nearly three meetings of the Royal Society.

Count Rumford had another serious illness in Naples in the early part of
1794. He returned to Munich in August.

He left Munich for London in 1795. He had spent the year after his return
from Italy in comparative quiet. He was unfit for public business and he
chiefly occupied himself by writing out the results that he had obtained. He
thus made a series of essays.
In order to publish these in England and to meet his daughter, who was
about to come to him from America, and to recover further his health, he
obtained leave of absence from the Elector of Bavaria.
In his paper on Gunpowder in 1781 he said he would make experiments on
the strength of various bodies. In 1797, when he had another paper in the
‘Philosophical Transactions’ on this subject, he added this note:

Since writing the above I have met with a misfortune which has put it
out of my power to fulfil this promise. On my return to England from
Germany, in October 1795, after an absence of eleven years, I was
stopped in my post-chaise in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in London, at six
o’clock in the evening, and robbed of a trunk which was behind my
carriage, containing all my private papers and my original notes and
observations on philosophical subjects. By this cruel robbery I have
been deprived of the fruits of the labours of my whole life, and have
lost all that I held most valuable. This most severe blow has left an
impression on my mind which I feel that nothing will ever be able
entirely to remove. It is the more painful to me, as it has clouded my
mind with suspicions that never can be cleared up.

These essays were published at different times separately between 1796 and
1802. The two first volumes were reprinted in 1800.
His first essay gave an account of an establishment for the poor in Munich;
the second was on establishments for the poor in general. It contains the
germ of the Royal Institution.
This was a ‘proposal for forming in London by private subscription an
establishment for feeding the poor and giving them useful employment, and
also for furnishing food at a cheap rate to others who may stand in need of
such assistance, connected with an institution for introducing and bringing
forward into general use new inventions and improvements, particularly
such as relate to the management of heat and the saving of fuel, and to

various other mechanical contrivances by which domestic comfort and
economy may be promoted, submitted to the public by A.B.’ Dated January
1, 1796. Count Rumford begins by saying that no person shall find means to
make a job of the proposed establishment. That the general arrangement of
the establishment and all its details shall be left to the author of these
proposals, who will be responsible for their success. He engages, however,
in the prosecution of this business to adhere faithfully to the plan here
proposed, and never to depart from it on any pretence whatever.

He proposed first to establish a public kitchen with every useful
invention and improvement by which fuel may be saved.
As soon as the measures for feeding the poor and giving them
employment are carried into execution the secondary object will be
attended to—the formation of a grand repository of all kinds of useful
mechanical inventions, particularly such as relate to furnishing houses
and are calculated to promote domestic comfort and economy.
He concluded thus: ‘The author of these proposals will think himself
most amply repaid for any trouble he may have taken in the execution
of this scheme by the heartfelt satisfaction he will enjoy in the
reflection of having been instrumental in doing essential service to
mankind.’

In the summer of 1796 a conversation took place between the Bishop of
Durham, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bernard, and the Honourable Edward James
Eliot, and in consequence of this a society was formed for encouraging
industry and promoting the welfare of the poor.
The object of this Society was everything that concerned the happiness of
the poor, everything by which their comforts could be increased; to correct
the abuses of workhouses; to assist the poor in placing out their children; to
add to and meliorate their means of subsistence by public kitchens, by the
union of liberal and benevolent minds, by circulating information and by
personal assistance and influence.
The Bishop of Durham and Mr. Thomas Bernard were the chief contributors
to the funds. Mr. Bernard was the third son of Sir Francis Bernard,
Governor of New Jersey and Massachusetts Bay. He was a graduate of

Harvard College, New England. He was the original promoter of the School
for the Indigent Blind, of an Institution for the Protection and Instruction of
Climbing Boys, of a Society for the Relief of Poor Neighbours in Distress,
of the Cancer Institution, of the London Fever Hospital. He was also the
founder of the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United
Kingdom, and the originator of the Alfred Club.
The first meeting of the new Society was held on December 21, 1796, when
the King declared himself the patron of it. On February 24, 1797, the
Society resolved that, ‘in consideration of the extraordinary services of
Count Rumford for the benefit of the poor, and as a testimony of the respect
and esteem with which this Society regards his services in the promotion of
the general objects of the institution, he be elected and declared a member
of the Society and one of the general committee for life.’
In consequence Count Rumford wrote to Thomas Bernard, Esq., from
Germany:

Munich, April 28, 1797.
I feel myself very highly honoured by the distinguished mark of
esteem and regard which the Society for Bettering the Condition of the
Poor has conferred on me, and I beg leave through you to return the
Society my respectful and grateful acknowledgments.
This flattering proof of the approbation of those most respectable
persons who compose the Society will tend very powerfully to
encourage me to persevere in those endeavours to promote the
important objects they have in view, by which I first obtained their
notice and esteem.
I am very sanguine in my expectations of the good which will be done
by this Society; they will, however, be able to do much more by
examples—by models that can be seen and felt—than by anything that
can be said or written.

The following year he wrote:

Munich, May 13, 1798.

The rapid progress you are making in your most interesting and
laudable undertakings affords me a high degree of satisfaction. It
proves that I was not mistaken when I concluded that, notwithstanding
the alarming progress of luxury and corruption of taste and of morals
in England, there is still good sense and energy to be found, even in the
highest classes of society, where the influx of wealth has operated
most powerfully. Go on, my dear sir, and be assured that when you
shall have put doing good in fashion, you will have done all that
human wisdom can do to retard and prolong the decline of a great and
powerful nation that has arrived at, or passed, the zenith of human
glory.

And again:

Munich, June 8, 1798.
I have received your letter from Brighton of the 12th ult. You can
hardly imagine the high degree of pleasure and satisfaction which I
feel at your success in your most laudable undertakings. Go on, my
dear sir, and be assured that you will contribute more essentially to the
revival of taste and morals, of energy, industry, benevolence, and
prosperity in your favoured country than all the speculators and
reformers in the three kingdoms.
When society is arrived at a certain degree of torpid indifference and
enervation of mind and body, which are the unavoidable effects of
wealth, luxury, and inordinate indulgence, mankind must either be
allured or shamed into action. Precepts and admonitions have no effect
on them.
As they are too indolent to take the trouble either to investigate or to
choose, they must be led to acts of useful benevolence as they are led
in everything else—by fashion; when you shall have rendered it
perfectly ridiculous for a man of fashion and fortune to have the
appearance of being insensible to the most noble and most delightful
of human enjoyments—that which results from doing good—you will
have done more for the relief of the poor than all that the Poor Laws
can ever effect. Deeply impressed with the necessity of rendering it

fashionable to care for the poor and indigent, and contribute to their
relief and comfort, in order to diffuse in England that spirit of active
benevolence you are kindling, I am apt to insist, perhaps with too
much prolixity, on that important point.
I am anxious to hear of the execution of your plan with regard to
Bridewell. A well arranged House of Industry is much wanted in
London. It is indeed absolutely necessary to the success of your
undertaking, for there must be something to see and to touch, if I may
use the expression, otherwise people in general will have but very
faint, imperfect, and transitory ideas of those important and highly
interesting objects with which you must make them acquainted in
order to their becoming zealous converts to our new philosophy, and
useful members of our community. Pray read once more the
‘Proposals,’ published in my second essay. I really think that a public
establishment like that there described might easily be formed in
London, and that it would produce infinite good. I will come to
London to assist you in its execution whenever you will in good
earnest undertake it.

The third essay was on ‘Food and Feeding the Poor; Rumford Soup and
Soup-Kitchens.’ The fourth on ‘Chimney Fire-Places.’ The fifth on ‘Several
Public Institutions Founded in Bavaria; on Nurseries for Genius; for Horses
and for Cattle.’
During 1797 and 1798 Rumford published in England a second volume
containing four essays.
These were on the ‘Management of Fire and the Economy of Fuel;’ on the
‘Propagation of Heat in Fluids,’ extending to liquids, the doctrine which he
had before advanced respecting elastic fluids; on the ‘Propagation of Heat
in various Substances;’ and an ‘Experimental Inquiry concerning the Source
of Heat Excited by Friction.’
An account of this last essay must be given here, because from it Count
Rumford derives his chief scientific reputation.
Whilst directing the military affairs of the Duke of Bavaria he had to
organise the field artillery, and he found no cannon foundry in Bavaria. The

arsenal at Munich was filled with cannon, but by far the greater part of them
were perfectly useless, being too heavy to be moved. There was a very good
foundry at Mannheim, the capital of the Elector’s dominions on the Rhine,
but the distance between Munich and Mannheim is so great that it would
have cost more to have sent the Bavarian guns to Mannheim to be
refounded and to have brought them back than was required to defray the
expense of establishing a new manufactory for the construction of artillery
in Bavaria.
A foundry was accordingly established at Munich, and neither pains nor
expense were spared to make it as perfect as possible. A most excellent
machine was erected for boring cannon, with workshops adjoining to it for
the construction of gun-carriages and ammunition waggons.
Whilst engaged in superintending the boring of the cannon he was struck by
the heat produced in a brass gun and with the still more intense heat of the
metallic chips separated by the borer.
He says: ‘The more I meditated on these phenomena the more they
appeared to me to be curious and interesting. A thorough investigation of
them seemed even to bid fair to give a further insight into the hidden nature
of heat, and to enable us to form some reasonable conjectures respecting the
existence or non-existence of an igneous fluid.
‘Whence comes the heat actually produced?
‘Does it come from the metallic chips? If so, their capacity for heat must be
changed; but by repeated experiments I found that no change of capacity
was caused by the boring. Determination of the actual heat produced and of
the amount of chips showed that there was no relation between them. That
the heat did not come from the gun itself was shown by the absence of
every sign of exhaustion in the metal, notwithstanding the large quantities
of heat given off.
‘Did the heat come from the air? Exclusion of the air did not in the smallest
degree diminish the heat.
‘It would be difficult,’ he says, ‘to describe the surprise and astonishment
expressed in the countenances of the bystanders on seeing a large quantity
of cold water heated and actually made to boil without any fire.

‘Though there was, in fact, nothing that could justly be considered as
surprising in this event, yet I acknowledge fairly that it afforded me a
degree of childish pleasure which, were I ambitious of the reputation of a
grave philosopher, I ought most certainly rather to hide than to discover.’
The amount of heat given out in a continual stream by his borer he
estimated at that of nine wax candles each of three-quarters of an inch in
diameter. This was produced by the work of two horses. ‘But,’ he adds, ‘no
circumstances can be imagined in which this method of procuring heat
would not be disadvantageous; for more heat may be obtained by using the
fodder necessary for the support of a horse as fuel.’
He concludes thus:
‘Anything which any insulated body or system of bodies can continue to
furnish without limitation cannot possibly be a material substance, and it
appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any
distinct idea of anything capable of being excited and communicated in
these experiments except it be MOTION.
‘I am far from pretending to know how that particular kind of motion which
has been supposed to constitute heat is excited, continued, and propagated.
Nobody surely in his sober senses has ever pretended to understand the
mechanism of gravitation, and yet what sublime discovery was our
immortal Newton enabled to make merely by the investigation of the laws
of its action!’
The account of these experiments was read to the Royal Society, January
25, 1798.
Some interesting facts regarding this paper are to be found in the
correspondence of Sir C. Blagden with Sir J. Banks.

Dear Sir Joseph,—Count Rumford’s paper on Friction, together with
your letter, were safely delivered to me by Lord Palmerston. The paper
is by no means incorrect in itself, nor has the copyist made any
remarkable blunders, and it is valuable from the large scale on which
the experiments were tried, and the quantity of heat produced in
consequence. As the result of the experiments was such as the Count

himself foresaw, and as every other philosopher would have expected,
they do not furnish any new argument in favour of the opinion he has
adopted that heat is motion, though perhaps they add force to the old
ones. There is, however, an experiment of some consequence if it can
be depended upon; namely, that which seemed to show that the
shavings cut by the borer out of the cannon had the same capacity for
heat as the metal on which the borer had not acted; but I do not feel
much confidence in experiments of this nature. You will recollect that
one opinion pretty much adopted on this subject is that the heat
produced in boring a cannon depends on the compression of the metal
of the cannon by the borer, in consequence of which it gives out heat;
on the principle that the same body has a less capacity for heat when it
is in a denser than when it is in a rarer state. I wish the Count had
ascertained whether the metal shavings he tried had really a greater
specific gravity than that of the chips of metal he had sawed off.

Whilst in England Rumford at this time strove to advance scientific
knowledge not only by the publication of his own discoveries, but also by
his benefactions for the promotion of discovery by others, and by the
further practical application of some of the results which he had obtained.
On July 12, 1796, he wrote to the Honourable John Adams, President of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston, to offer 5,000 dollars in
the 3 per cent. stocks, ‘to the end that the interest may be spent every
second year on a silver and gold medal as a premium to the author of the
most important discovery or useful improvement on heat or on light; the
preference always being given to such discoveries as shall, in the opinion of
the Academy, tend most to promote the good of mankind.’
In 1829 the fund accumulated to 20,000 dollars, and in 1870 to 37,000
dollars. The Academy applied to the Legislature to use the money for the
purchase of books and apparatus, and to pay for experiments, lectures, and
treatises, and this was decided in 1831. During the first fifty years only one
award of the medals was made. This was to Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, 1839.
They have been since given to Mr. Ericsson, Professor Treadwell, Mr.
Alvan Clark, and Mr. Corliss.

On the same day in 1796 Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, the
President of the Royal Society, offering 1,000l. stock on the same
conditions to the Royal Society of London.
Sir Joseph Banks was requested by the council to return their sincere thanks
to Count Rumford, and at the same time to inquire ‘how far improvements
or discoveries in optics and chemistry might come under the Count’s
views.’
Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, from Munich, April 20, 1797:

I think the premium should be limited to new discoveries tending to
improve the theories of fire, of heat, of light, and of colours, and to
new inventions and contrivances by which the generation and
preservation and management of heat and of light may be facilitated.
In as far, therefore, as chemical discoveries or improvements in optics
answer any of these conditions they may, I think, fairly be considered
as being within the limits assigned to the operation of the premium.
The objects which I had more particularly in view to encourage, are
such practical improvements in the generation and management of heat
and light as tend directly and powerfully to increase the enjoyments
and comforts of life, especially in the lower and more numerous
classes of society.

The first award of the Rumford medal was made, in November 1802, to
Count Rumford himself for his own discoveries on heat and light. In 1870
the award was made for the twenty-sixth time. Eleven foreigners have
received the honour, and thus added to the reputation of the prize. The
greatest English discoverer on the subject of light is not on the list, but
when sending the medal to M. Fresnel (who was on his death-bed) in 1827,
Young, as foreign secretary of the Royal Society, wrote to him: ‘I also
should claim some right to participate in the compliment which is tacitly
paid to myself in common with you by this adjudication, but, considering
that more than a quarter of a century is passed since my principal
experiments were made, I can only feel it a sort of anticipation of
posthumous fame, which I have never particularly coveted.’

In order further to apply some of his scientific researches to practice in the
spring of 1796, on the invitation of his friend Mr. Secretary Pelham,
Rumford went to Dublin.
In the house of the Dublin Society he fitted up a laundry and a model
kitchen for private families, and also a cottage fire-place, and a model lime-
kiln in the courtyard of the house of the Society; also in the hall in which
the meetings of the Royal Irish Academy are held he fitted up two chimney
fire-places. He contrived a fire-place for heating one of the principal
churches in Dublin, and he promised to give a plan for heating the superb
new building destined for the meeting of the Irish House of Commons. In
the Linen Hall at Dublin he fitted up an oblong square boiler as a model for
bleachers.
He was made a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Society for
the Encouragement of Arts, and he received after he left the country the
public thanks of the Grand Jury of the County of Dublin, and of the Lord
Mayor of the city, as well as of the Lord Lieutenant as the head of the
Government.
Upon his return to London he superintended some improvements at the
Foundling Hospital for his friend Mr. Bernard, who was treasurer there.
Roasters and boilers were put up, but he was obliged to return to Munich
before the kitchens were entirely finished.
His daughter left America to join her father in England in January 1796. By
her Colonel Baldwin wrote from Woburn, January 26, 1796:

In answer to your inquiry, I can say that it is my opinion that you can
freely return to America, either with or without official leave from the
State, as you may choose; and that you would realise a hearty welcome
from all your old friends and citizens in general. I can say, for one, that
there is not a person on earth that I should rejoice so much to see.

Rumford answered:

London, March 26, 1796.

I return you many thanks for your friendly letter, which I received by
my daughter, and I beg you would accept my warmest
acknowledgments for all the kindness you have shown to my daughter
for the many years she has been known to you.
Her gratitude to you is without bounds, and she says nothing on earth
will ever make her forget your goodness to her. I do not despair of
being able, at some future period, to express to you in person, by word
of mouth, the sense I entertain of your kindness to my dear child. You
will not expect that I should attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at
seeing my dear girl after an absence of twenty years!

Some years afterwards the daughter gave a vivid picture of her father at this
time.

Count Rumford, my father, having passed several preceding years at
Munich, in Bavaria, had come to England to have published some of
his essays. He took the opportunity to send for me, my mother being
dead, and I requiring protection. Many were the scenes he had passed
through after leaving me as an infant, and erroneous were the ideas I
had formed of him, particularly of his appearance; we having had only
a small profile of him in shade, giving ever an imperfect idea of the
person. Indeed, so different from what I had thought were his looks,
that I could hardly fancy him the person I sought after, and would
willingly have run from him, and ended in a violent fit of crying,
which he did not consider as a compliment, asking me afterwards what
I meant by it. The playfulness of his character (at times) secured love
to my father. Witness his laughter, quite from the heart, nothing made
up about it. The expression of his mouth, ornamented with the most
finished pearls, was sweetness itself. But to see him accidentally, he
did not strike one as handsome, or very agreeable, though not exactly
to the contrary. At the time I met him, having been ill, he was very thin
and pale—again a reason of my disappointment. My opinion of him
was naturally romantic, perhaps, as young people’s often are. I had
heard him spoken of as an officer. I had attached to this an idea of the
warrior, with the martial look, possibly the sword, if not the gun, by
his side. His profile being in black, made me suppose him dark in
complexion, possibly sunburnt; in short, in stature, size, and looks the

perfect warrior. Yet my mother often spoke of him as carroty, his hair
being red; but later not so, a very pretty colour. My father pretended I
looked better than he expected to find me. It is true he had had a most
unfavourable likeness of me in a small miniature.
Though it was a trying scene to meet, yet it was nothing to finding out
each other’s disposition in the end, and my father began with being
much alarmed about me. He himself resided in a large hotel in Pall
Mall, but could not have me with him, putting me to board not far off,
at a Mrs. Lackington’s. He had brought his valet, Aichner, with him,
and for me a maid, by the name of Anymeetle, both Germans. I was to
be presented to Lord and Lady Palmerston, Sir Charles Blagden, Sir
William Pepperell and family (Americans), and other of his friends.
My father was often at the Royal Society, and intimate with its
president, Sir Joseph Banks. I would be invited to the dinners Sir
Joseph gave to the select ones of his royal learned Society. Through
the kindness and civility of Lady and Miss Banks, his wife and sister, I
several times found myself one of their party. Lady Banks was so kind,
and, most likely out of civility to my father, she would allow me to be
with her for days together, taking me about with her, letting me see
things—in short, trying to amuse me. I recollect she took me to a Lord
Mayor’s ball, where I saw the princes and royal family for the first
time. As may be supposed, the select dinners of the Royal Society
were highly interesting, and where, I think, ladies were seldom or
never admitted. I was allowed to accompany Lady and Miss Banks as
a mere nobody; but this did not prevent my making observations which
never have been and never will be forgotten. The idea of very learned
people suggests that of pedantry. At these dinners there was nothing of
the kind, differing only from other refined societies when remarks
were made to convey perhaps new ideas, discoveries, or highly
entertaining instruction, sometimes there being no such talk at all.

The daughter wrote to Mrs. Baldwin in America, June 13, 1796:

We should have been gone long before this time to Germany if some
business had not called my father to Ireland.

I enjoy very good health, and am very happy. I should think it strange
if I were not to be. I am indulged in everything I wish, and I am under
the protection of a parent that I have not only reason to love, but to be
proud of.

The state of Europe at this time caused Rumford to return to Munich. At the
close of the campaign of 1794 between France and the German Empire,
when Prussia made peace with France, Bavaria desired to be neutral. It was
not until the spring of 1796 that the Republicans under Moreau, who had
crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, threatened Munich. Rumford was recalled.
The Elector took refuge in Saxony eight days after Rumford arrived. He had
appointed Rumford head of a council of regency and commander of the
Bavarian troops. The Austrians, defeated by the French near Augsburg in
August, retreated on Munich. They found Count Rumford determined to
oppose them. On the arrival of the French troops he refused to admit them
also, and by his firmness and wisdom the neutrality of Munich was
preserved. The inhabitants of the town fully recognised that they owed the
preservation of their city to Count Rumford alone.
The defeat of Jourdan on the Lower Rhine obliged Moreau to retreat. The
Bavarian territory was evacuated, and the Elector returned to Munich. He
made Rumford head of the General Police of Bavaria, and about 200l. of
the pension which had been granted to him was settled on his daughter for
her life. She was also received at Court as a Countess of the Empire.
In December 1797 Rumford wrote to his friend Baldwin from Munich:

My daughter never ceases her solicitations to engage me to pay a visit
to my friends in America, and her wishes are so powerfully seconded
by my own feelings and longing desires to breathe once more my
native air, that I have come to the resolution to make the journey as
soon as the restoration of peace and the arrangement of my concerns in
this country will permit it. If the public affairs of Europe and of
America take the turn I expect, and if no unforeseen event should

happen to prevent my carrying my schemes into execution, I think you
will see us in America in fifteen or sixteen months from this time.

Meanwhile his daughter amused herself at Munich.
The Elector was old and had married a young wife, so that there was gaiety
at Court during this winter, and the attentions of one of the aides-de-camp
of her father made rides, and dinners, and balls pleasant to the Count’s
daughter; but she says ‘all her fine castles were demolished by one blow
from her father, and Count Taxis was ordered to join his regiment in the
country.’ Ill health followed, and change of air and scene was advised. ‘My
father appeared to try how agreeable he could make himself, as if wishing
to wear off by it some of the disagreeable impressions of his late conduct in
drawing so many tears from my poor eyes.... When quiet and happy himself
he was, like others, agreeable; but when perplexed with cares and business,
or much occupied, there was no living with him.’
In the autumn of 1798, partly on account of his health, he determined to
return to England with his daughter. The Elector of Bavaria, to show his
esteem for Rumford, appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy
Extraordinary to the Court of St. James.
On September 14, 1798, Lord Grenville sent a despatch to the Hon. Arthur
Paget at Munich, saying, ‘It is, I apprehend, a thing if not wholly
unprecedented, at least extremely unusual, to appoint a subject of the
country to reside at the Court of his natural sovereign in the character of
minister from a foreign prince. I am to direct you in the last resort to state in
distinct terms that his Majesty will by no means consent to receive Count
Rumford in the character which has been assigned to him. You will observe
that the circumstance of Count Rumford having heretofore filled a
confidential situation (that of Under-Secretary of State in the American
Department) under his Majesty’s Government, makes the appointment in
his person peculiarly improper and objectionable.’
On Count Rumford’s arrival on September 19 he wrote to Lord Grenville to
say that, notwithstanding the information and the intimation which had been
communicated to him by Mr. Canning, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, he considered it his duty formally to notify that, having been
appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, he had come

to England in consequence of that appointment, and was charged with a
letter to the King, which he ought to endeavour to obtain permission to
deliver with his own hands. He therefore asked an audience or personal
interview with the minister, to state the objects of his mission, and to
receive such information as would enable him to give a clear, authentic, and
satisfactory account to the sovereign who had entrusted him with the
management of his affairs.
The day but one after, Lord Grenville shortly answers that ‘he conceives it
will be more agreeable to Count Rumford that the substance of the
representation with which Mr. Paget was charged should be transmitted by
Count Rumford to the Elector rather than through any other channel.’
The same day a despatch to this effect was written to the Hon. Arthur Paget
at Munich.
No other notice was taken of Count Rumford’s appointment. He did not
return to Munich, and the following year his master, the Elector Charles
Theodore, died.
The thoughts of Rumford, when rejected as minister of Bavaria, were
directed to his native land. He thus wrote to his friend Baldwin in America:

London, September 28, 1798.
I arrived in this city last week from Germany, and I expect to be able
to remain here several months. I have, indeed, some hopes of being
able to pay you a visit in America in the spring. But these hopes,
though apparently well founded, may easily be disappointed, for there
are several events, none of which are very improbable, that would
render it impossible for me to be absent from Europe next year. It is,
however, my fixed intention to pay a visit to my friends in America as
soon as ever it shall be in my power, which most probably will be in
the course of a year or two. I have even a scheme of forming for
myself a little quiet retreat in that country, to which I can retire at some
future period and spend the evening of my life. Perhaps you may be so
good as to assist me in carrying this plan into execution. As I am not
wealthy, and prefer comfort to splendour, I shall not want anything
magnificent. From forty to one hundred acres of good land, with wood

and water belonging to it, if possible in a retired situation, from one to
four miles from Cambridge, with or without a neat, comfortable house
upon it, would satisfy all my wishes.

Among his friends in England was the Honourable Rufus King, the
American minister.
Mr. King wrote to Colonel Pickering, the Secretary of State in America:

London, December 8, 1798.
Count Rumford, late Sir Benjamin Thompson, whose name and history
are probably known to you, and whose talents and services have
procured the most beneficial establishments and reforms in Bavaria,
was lately named by the Elector to be his minister at this Court. On his
arrival he has been informed that, being a British subject, it was
contrary to usage to receive him, and that therefore he could not be
acknowledged. The intrigues and opposition against which he had for
some years made head in Bavaria probably made him desire the
mission to England. The refusal he has here met with has decided him
to return and settle himself in America. He proposes to establish
himself at or near Cambridge, to live there in the character of a
German count, to renounce all political expectations, and devote
himself to literary pursuits. His connexions in this country are strictly
literary, and his knowledge, particularly in the military department,
may be of great use to us. The Count is well acquainted with and has
had much experience in the establishment of cannon foundries; that
which he established in Bavaria is spoken of in very high terms, as
well as certain improvements that he has introduced in the mounting of
flying artillery.
He possesses an extensive military library, and assures me that he
wishes nothing more than to be useful to our country. I make this
communication by his desire, and my wish is that he may be well
received, as I am persuaded that his principles are good, and his talents
and information uncommonly extensive. It is possible that attempts
may be made to misrepresent his political opinions; from the inquiry

that I have made on this head, I am convinced that his political
sentiments are correct.
Be good enough to communicate this letter to the President.

Count Rumford soon after wrote to Mr. King:

I send you herewith a small pamphlet,[5] which will explain to you the
causes which have rendered it impossible for me to go to America this
spring, as I had intended. I have not, however, given over all ideas of
visiting that country at some future period; very far from it, I really
hope and expect to be able to go there next spring, and will most
certainly do so, if it should be possible, provided you should continue
to advise it, and to encourage me with the hope of a kind reception.

The model of a field-piece[6] on a new, and I believe on an improved
construction, which I have destined as a present to the United States, I
shall pack up and send to you, in order to its being shipped for
America as soon as I shall get it from his Royal Highness the Duke of
York, who has desired to have a copy of it.
You will recollect that in a conversation we had at your house on the
great importance to the United States of the speedy establishment of a
military school or academy, I took the liberty to say that to assist in the
establishment of so useful an institution I should be happy to be
permitted to make a present to the academy of my collection of
military books, plans, drawings, and models. I now repeat this offer,
and with a request to you that you would make it known to the
Executive Government of the United States, and that you would let me
know as soon as may be convenient whether this offer will be
accepted.

Another letter written the following day to his friend Colonel Baldwin also
gives the reason why Rumford stayed in England.

March 14, 1799.
I will not attempt to describe the painful disappointment I feel at being
obliged to give up all hopes of seeing you and the rest of my dear

friends in America this year. A small pamphlet which you will receive
with this letter will acquaint you with the reasons which have induced
me to postpone my intended voyage; and you will, I am confident,
agree with me in opinion that I have done right in sacrificing the
pleasure that voyage would have afforded me to the more important
objects to which my attention has been called. I beg you would be so
kind as to give my dear mother the earliest notice of this change in my
plans, and that you would at the same time endeavour to give her just
ideas of the very great importance of the undertaking in which I have
been called upon to give my assistance, and show her how impossible
it was for me to refuse that assistance, especially as it was asked in a
manner so honourable to myself. And as the success of the undertaking
will be productive of so much good, and will place me in so
distinguished a situation in the eyes of the world and of posterity, you
will, I am persuaded, find little difficulty in persuading her that I have
done perfectly right, and in reconciling her to the disappointment she
will naturally feel at not seeing me arrive in America at the time
appointed.

The undertaking was the Royal Institution, and the pamphlet was the
‘Proposals’ for its foundation.
On September 8 Mr. King again wrote to Count Rumford:

London, September 8, 1799.
I have more than once expressed to you a wish that you might find
leisure, as well as inclination, to revisit your native country, where I
have been persuaded you would meet with a friendly and cordial
reception, and by your presence and advice might be of great
advantage to our public institutions, the establishment of which, upon
approved principles, is an object of the highest consequence. I am
happy that I have it in my power to assure you that I have not been
mistaken in these sentiments, and it affords me peculiar satisfaction to
execute the order that I have lately received from my Government to
invite you in its name to return and reside among us, and to propose to
you to enter into the American service.[7]

Count Rumford answered:

Brompton, September 12, 1799.
I am deeply sensible of the honour that has been conferred upon me by
the Government of the United States, by the kind invitation they have
sent me to come and reside in my native country, and also by the other
distinguished and most flattering proofs of their confidence and esteem
with which that invitation has been accompanied.
Nothing could have afforded me so much satisfaction as to have had it
in my power to have given to my liberal and generous countrymen
such proof of my sentiments as would in the most public and
ostensible manner have evinced, not only my gratitude for the kind
attentions I have received from them, but also the ardent desire I feel
to assist in promoting the prosperity of my native country.

His affection for his mother, his daughter, and his friend is seen in the
following letter to Colonel Baldwin, which he wrote the day before his
daughter sailed for America:

Brompton, near London, August 24, 1799.
I cannot permit my daughter to return to America without charging her
with a few lines for my oldest friend and schoolfellow, the companion
of my earliest youth. In straining my recollection as much as possible,
in order to look back into that dark cloud that covers the early period
of my life, I can remember no person distinctly, longer than yourself,
except it be my mother. I must therefore consider you as one of my
oldest acquaintances, and I have never ceased to regard you and to
love you as one of my best friends. A few months ago I flattered
myself with the hope of soon seeing you, but events happened to
frustrate those hopes. But though my voyage to America is postponed,
it is by no means abandoned. On the contrary, I really think it very
likely that I shall pay you a visit next spring.
My daughter will tell you what I am doing in this country, and will
acquaint you with my plans and wishes respecting her establishment in
America. If you can further the execution of my schemes, I have no

doubt but you will do it. There is nothing I have so much at heart as to
make my dear mother perfectly comfortable and happy during the
remainder of her life.

And a year later he wrote to Colonel Baldwin:

Royal Institution, June 9, 1800.
I must begin my letter with a subject which is ever uppermost in my
mind. My daughter and my dear mother will probably be in your
neighbourhood when this letter reaches you. I most earnestly
recommend them both to your kind attentions. I have one wish, and
one only, respecting them, which is, that they may be as happy as
possible. As I am at so great a distance from them, I am but ill
qualified to judge of their wants and their wishes. Pray assist them in
every way in which your friendly assistance can be of use to them, or
make them comfortable and contented.
Perhaps my daughter may marry (which she has my leave to do
whenever she pleases, and with whom she pleases).[8] This may greatly
alter her relative situation with me and with my mother. She may
perhaps wish at some future period to make me another visit in
Europe, and even in this scheme I shall not oppose her inclinations, if
her heart should be set on the gratification of them. I do not mean to be
an indulgent father in theory only.
Tell me how I must act to make two persons who are very dear to me
as happy as possible.

CHAPTER II.
LIFE OF RUMFORD AFTER THE
FOUNDATION OF THE INSTITUTION.
1799 to 1814.
The history of the life of Count Rumford in 1799, 1800, 1801 to May 1802
is chiefly the history of the Royal Institution. The foundation of it forms an
episode which must be separated from the rest of his career. But some of the
letters and events of these years which are more closely related to his future
life will be recorded here.
Before he began the Institution he had almost determined to go to America,
and before the building was finished he wrote to his daughter regarding the
time ‘when I shall be at liberty,’ and soon after he spoke of going to
Munich, but before his plans for the Institution were carried out he went to
Paris, where new attractions put an end to all he intended to do in America
and in England, and he never revisited his native or his adopted country.
On June 9, 1800, Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford’s daughter in America:

It will give me great pleasure to see you again either here or in
America. Do not depend upon the Count’s going to visit you there. It is
indeed possible that the fancy may suddenly strike him, and then he
will set off in an instant, almost without giving notice. But his
favourite child, the Institution, cannot yet walk alone, and, if he quits it
at the time he talks of, will be a helpless cripple, even if it should
continue to exist at all. I still see with regret his time and powers
wasted on an object so inferior, in my opinion, to those which
presented themselves to him in America. But he views the thing in a
different light, and I suspect will be led on to stay here one year after
another, till you are worn out with expecting him, and the opportunity
of distinguishing himself in a rising country will be past.

Count Rumford thus wrote to his daughter:

Royal Institution, London, March 2, 1801.
My dear Child,—I am still established at the Institution. I have been
exceedingly busy, but desire to be thankful that all is now nearly
completed, when I shall be at liberty. We have found a nice able man
for this place as lecturer—Humphry Davy. Lectures are given,
frequented by crowds of the first people. Lady Palmerston and her two
daughters, Frances and Elizabeth, are pretty constant attendants.
They would not receive me as minister here, but seem disposed now to
make it up to me by the respect they show the Institution—originally
and chiefly my work. Bernard says they are crazy about it. It was
certainly gratifying to me to see the honourable list of lords, dukes,
&c., as fifty-guinea subscribers. It is a very extensive establishment,
and will cost a great deal of money; but I hope it will be an equal
advantage to the world, as the expense and labour of forming it have
been great. To strive for good things I view as a laudable ambition, as I
hope you do, my dear Sally. But I hope, above all, to hear of your
being well and happy, not doubting the rest.
I hope to be undisturbed by visitors this morning, or workmen, from
my being thought to be at Harrogate, and to be allowed quietly to fill
this sheet. You can form no idea of the bustle in which I live since I
have taken up my residence in this place. In short, the Royal Institution
is not only the fashion but the rage. I am very busy indeed in striving
to turn the disposition of the moment to a good account for the
permanent benefit of society.
I have the unspeakable satisfaction to find that my labours have not
been in vain. In this moment of scarcity and general alarm the
measures I have recommended in my writings for relieving the
distresses of the poor are very generally adopted, and public kitchens
have been erected in all the great towns in England and Scotland.
Upwards of sixty thousand persons are fed daily from the different
public kitchens in London.
The plan has lately been adopted in France, and a very large public
kitchen for feeding the poor was opened in Paris three weeks since. A
gentleman present tells me that the founders of the institution did me

the honour to put my name at the head of the tickets given to the poor
authorising them to receive soup at the public kitchens. At Geneva
they have done still more to show me respect. They have marked their
tickets with a stamp on which my portrait and my name are engraved.
I am not vain, my dear Sally, but it is utterly impossible not to feel
deeply affected at these distinguished marks of honour conferred on
me by nations at war with Great Britain, and in countries where I have
never been, or know little of the inhabitants. But my greatest delight
arises from the silent contemplation of having succeeded in schemes
and labours for the benefit of mankind.

Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford’s daughter, September 10, 1801:

Your father is indeed going to Munich, and talks of setting out in a
fortnight. I had at one time almost settled to go with him, but he then
proposed to stay there all this winter and next summer. Two or three
weeks ago he changed his plan, and determined to make this only a
preparatory visit, and to return hither within three months. For my own
part I sincerely wish that he had found it expedient to make a voyage
to America instead of this journey on the Continent. I would then
certainly have accompanied him across the Atlantic, notwithstanding
the unsettled state of affairs here. He every day talks more and more
coolly about going to America, and though I really think that he means
to make you a visit there some time or other, yet it does not seem as if
he promised himself much satisfaction besides.
As to his health, it is nearly the same as usual, except that he is rather
thinner, having lived long upon a very spare diet. The constant
agitation of his mind, and the irritable constitution with which it is
connected, will necessarily prevent him from enjoying a regular state
of good health.

Again, in September, writing to his daughter, Rumford says that the new
Elector has invited him to return with assurances of his warm friendship,
and ‘that though many salaries and pensions have been suspended through
the war, his shall be paid.’ He says he is going to Munich, ‘but that if the

Elector will excuse him he does not intend to stay long, the Royal
Institution still requiring his oversight.’
He reached Munich by way of Mannheim, and thence wrote to his daughter:

Munich, October 2, 1801.
My dear Sally,—I arrived here late last evening, and early this
morning went to pay my respects to the Elector, who received me with
all imaginable kindness. He appears to have plenty of business for me
in an academy he is about building, but, as things are not yet in
readiness to begin, I am excused from remaining; instead of which I
return to England, to put an end to the work begun there—that of the
Royal Institution. I owe so much to the Elector, it is my duty to do all
in my power to give him satisfaction. Besides, he says I shall be
president of the academy when done.

In another letter he speaks of the kindness he met with in Bavaria.
He left Munich on October 13, and again wrote to his daughter on his
arrival in Paris on the 25th. His daughter says this was her father’s first visit
to Paris. The reception he met with was ‘simply enchantment.’ His
inventions were in common use; his name was familiar to everyone. He
made a multitude of acquaintances; parties were made for him every day;
and he particularly liked one lady. Two letters written to Sir Joseph Banks
from Paris in 1801 are of great interest.

Hôtel de Caraman, Paris, November 11.
My dear Sir Joseph,—I arrived here from Munich about a fortnight
ago, and I purpose staying here three weeks longer. My reception has
been very flattering, and I find many interesting objects of curiosity
that engage my attention. I have already made the personal
acquaintance of most of the men of eminence in science, and I have
attended several of the meetings of the National Institute. At the last
meeting of the mathematical and physical class the First Consul came
in, and, fortunately for the complete gratification of my curiosity, he
happened to come and seat himself very near me. One person only
(Lagrange) was between us. He stayed about an hour—till the meeting

was over. Volta read a memoir on Galvanism and explained his theory
of the action of the voltaic pile or battery. His opinion is that all the
appearances that are called galvanic are owing to the action of an
electric fluid, and he says that the simple tact of two metals—silver
and zinc, for instance—is sufficient to set the electric fluid in motion;
and if the metals are insulated, one of them will become electrified
positively and the other negatively. This assertion was proved by an
experiment which was made before the assembly, and this fact is the
foundation on which his explanation of the phenomena of the galvanic
pile is established. After Volta had finished his memoir the First
Consul demanded leave from the President to speak, which, being
granted, he proposed to the meeting to reward M. Volta with a gold
medal, and to appoint a committee to confer with M. Volta on the
subject of his experiments and investigations respecting galvanism,
and to make such new experiments as may bid fair to lead to further
discoveries. He delivered his sentiments with great perspicuity and
displayed a degree of eloquence which surprised me. He is certainly a
very extraordinary man and is possessed of uncommon abilities. The
expression of his countenance is strong, and it is easy to perceive by
his looks that he can pronounce the magic words ‘je le veux’ with due
energy. I was presented to him by the Bavarian minister at his last
public audience, and was received by him with marked attention. He
gave me to understand that he knew me by reputation very well, and
intimated that the French nation had adopted several of the
improvements I had recommended. A few minutes after I came home
from the audience I received a note from him, inviting me to come and
dine with him that day. The foreign ministers dined with him, but no
other stranger except myself was invited; consequently my being
invited was considered as a marked distinction. It was the next day that
I saw him again at the National Institute.
I have had opportunities of making the acquaintance of several of the
most distinguished characters now in power in this country. I am very
intimate with Chaptal, the Minister of the Interior, and frequently see
Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have dined with both of
them, and visit them often. Laplace and Bertholet are very civil and
attentive to me, and have each of them given me a dinner, where I met

most of the men of science of the first distinction in Paris. Fourcroy
has also given me a dinner. In short, I am treated with the utmost
civility, and I spend my time very agreeably and very usefully. I hope
to see you in London about the 6th or 8th of December.
Ever yours most faithfully,
Rumford.

He again wrote:

November 22, 1801.
My dear Sir Joseph,—I do wrong perhaps, but I cannot help telling
you that your name is at the head of the list of those ten persons whom
the Class of Mathematics and Physics have resolved to present to the
National Institute at their next general meeting, in order to their being
elected foreign members of the Institute. You were proposed to the
class by the Section of Botany. Your name is followed by those of
Maskelyne, Cavendish, Herschel, Priestly, Pallas, Volta, and three
others. I was present when the ballot of the class was taken, and had
the satisfaction to see that all the votes agreed in placing your name at
the head of the list. I was politely told that my name would have been
near that of my friend, had it not been that the second class of the
Institute had claimed me as belonging to them and had placed me on
their list. The three first names on that list are, I am told, Mr. Jefferson,
President of the United States, Count Rumford, and Major Rennell; the
others I did not learn.
I was proposed to the class by the Section of Political Economy. The
classes propose to the Institute, and the Institute elects at a general
meeting. The number of foreign members is limited to twenty-four. As
the election will not take place for some weeks to come, I beg you
would make the most prudent use of the information I have given you.
I shall not mention the subject to anybody but yourself.
I hope to see you in London in about three weeks from this time.
My health is much improved, and is still improving every day. My stay
in Paris has afforded me much amusement, but I begin to be impatient

to see my friends in England. I hope everything is going on well at the
Royal Institution.
I am, my dear Sir Joseph, with unalterable esteem and attachment,
yours most faithfully,
Rumford.

In another letter to his daughter, written January 15, 1802, he says that he
returned to Brompton on December 20, and that he was three months on the
Continent and seven weeks of the time in Paris. He spoke of his intention to
enjoy again the delights of the French capital on his way, in the course of
the summer, to Munich and to get excused from any longer residence at
Munich. The Elector continued friendly to him, and had lately written to
him a very gracious letter, in which he expresses his pleasure at the
cordiality extended towards Rumford in France, and advises him to
cultivate an acquaintance with a certain lady there, who, among other
attractions, was said to have great wealth. When he made this second visit
to Paris, the Count accepted an invitation which he had received to stay
with the Bavarian ambassador.
Before he left England again, May 9, 1802, he published the third volume
of his essays.
His tenth essay was on ‘Kitchen Fire-Places and Utensils;’ his eleventh on
‘Chimney Fire-Places.’
His twelfth on the ‘Salubrity of Warm Rooms in Cold Weather;’ his
thirteenth on the ‘Salubrity of Bathing and the Construction of Warm
Baths.’ His fourteenth consisted of ‘Supplementary Observations on the
Management of Fires;’ his fifteenth was on the ‘Use of Steam for
Transporting Heat.’
In May 1802 he also published a volume of his philosophical papers, with a
dedication to his Most Serene Highness Maximilian Joseph, Elector
Palatine of Bavaria. In this he says he must ever feel himself greatly
indebted to his Most Serene Electoral Highness

for the kind assurances you gave me of your esteem, protection, and
friendship on your succeeding to your present Bavarian dominions on
the death of your late uncle, my kind friend and benefactor; but I am
bound to you still more, if it be possible, by the flattering invitation
you have lately given me to come to you and reside at your Court and
assist in the local work of carrying into execution the vast plans you
have formed for promoting the prosperity of your subjects.

From Brompton, May 6, 1802, he writes to his daughter: ‘In three days I
shall set out for Dover, on my way to Paris, where I expect to stay four or
five weeks, and then to proceed to Munich.’ He sent by way of Holland two
carriages and much baggage.
On May 20 Sir C. Blagden wrote from Paris to Sir Joseph Banks: ‘Count
Rumford arrived here last Friday (the 14th) in remarkably good health.
Travelling agrees with him, and he seems very happy. We purpose to set out
for Bavaria before the middle of next month.’
Writing to his daughter, June 25, Rumford says: ‘I did not propose to stay
here long, but the Elector has written commissioning me to transact some
business for him of a political nature in which he is much interested.’
On June 8 Sir C. Blagden writes to Sir Joseph Banks: ‘I was preparing
everything to set off for Germany, and had even applied to Mr. Merry for a
passport, when Count Rumford told me he had received permission from
the Elector to stay a few weeks longer at Paris. This considerably deranges
my plans.’
On July 19 Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

Rue de Clichy, 356, July 19, 1802.

My dear Sir Joseph,—The print[9] you sent me has afforded me much
amusement, and, even more than that, it has given me real satisfaction.
It is just that ‘those who take up the sword should perish by the
sword.’ I never had a doubt who was the author of another print which
certainly was not designed to give me pleasure. Although it has long
been said, and I believe with truth, that those who render themselves
conspicuous by their superior genius, their talents, and, above all, by

their usefulness to society, must necessarily be exposed to the shafts of
envy and to the hatred of all bad men, yet, much as I am desirous of
deserving the approbation of mankind, so far from feeling any secret
satisfaction at seeing myself distinguished by those miscreants, who
may justly be considered as the vermin of society, I lament that I am
not permitted to finish my days in peace and quietness. But the
established order of things cannot be changed, and I must endeavour to
support with patience and dignity all those evils which cannot be
avoided.
I continue to pass my time here in Paris very agreeably. The society in
which I live most is very pleasant, and I am surrounded by a great
variety of interesting objects of curiosity. I have very often the
satisfaction of hearing your name mentioned, and always in terms of
the highest possible respect. No individual was ever in more complete
possession of the enlightened world than yourself. It is indeed true that
no man ever deserved it more.
An extraordinary meeting of the first class of the Institute was held on
Saturday last for the purpose of deciding a dispute which had arisen
among the Ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées relative to an intended
canal from Cambray to St. Quentin, to form a communication by water
between the Belgique and the interior of France. Two plans had been
proposed, one by a M. Laurent and the other by M. Vicque.
Laurent proposed to form the junction by one straight subterranean
canal about six French leagues in length; Vicque proposed to avail
himself of a valley, in order to diminish the length of the subterranean
passage to about three leagues. The latter was almost unanimously
approved by the Institute, though the total length of the canal of
Vicque is more than a third greater than that of Laurent, and though it
has two subterranean passages instead of one. The First Consul was
present at the discussion of this question by the Institute, and took a
very active part in the debate. He displayed very uncommon abilities.
He is indeed a very extraordinary man. He hears with patience and
with the utmost attention every argument opposed to his own opinions,
and he states the question in dispute in so clear a light, and divests it so
completely from every consideration that is not essential, that every

difficulty seems to be removed and the decision rendered quite plain
and obvious.
I was at the public audience of the 14th of July, and dined with the
First Consul, and also stayed and spent the evening at the Tuileries. We
sat down to table about 240 persons, and about 60 or 80 of the
company stayed and spent the evening. There were a few card tables—
not more than four or five. The First Consul did not play, but walked
about and talked to the company. He went out two or three times upon
an elevated terrace, or rather large open platform, on the level of the
apartment we were in to see the illuminations of the gardens. As often
as he appeared, the crowd below saluted him by clapping hands.
He went to the opera the next evening, and, instead of occupying his
private box, which is grillé, he went and took his place in the front of
Madame Bonaparte’s box, where he was exposed to the view of the
whole house. The applause he received was quite enthusiastic and
lasted near a quarter of an hour. ‘Vive Bonaparte!’ was heard from
every part of the theatre, and the actors were obliged to stop for some
time. These applauses were again repeated when he went away. He
came to the meeting of the Institute on Saturday without any guards,
and accompanied only by his brother-in-law, General Murat. I
followed him down the stairs when he went away. I found his carriage
waiting for him, surrounded by about ten or twelve grenadiers, who
kept the crowd at a small distance from the carriage and formed a line
from the foot of the staircase. He was received by the populace with
shouts of applause, and he drove away without guards and with a
single footman behind his carriage, which was a coach.

Thursday Morning, July 31.
This letter will be forwarded by M. d’Ifeffel, the Elector’s chargé
d’affaires at London, who will leave Paris this evening. My stay at
Paris is very uncertain; I fancy, however, that I shall set out for Munich
in the course of three or four weeks. The Elector writes me the kindest
and most flattering letters, and I have the satisfaction to think that my
stay here has been of some use to him. I avoid most carefully every

appearance of interfering in public business, but I now and then find
opportunities of putting in a word privately where it is not lost. I fancy
the Elector will be well treated in the general arrangement which is
about to take place.
I thank you for the information you have given me relative to the
Royal Institution. It is impossible for me not to feel very deeply
interested in its fate. I hope it will prosper; I know it will if you can
support and protect it. It would grieve me to see it fall to the ground.
My health is much improved since I have been in France. I am, indeed,
now quite well. I continue to spend my time here very agreeably. If
there should be anything I could do for you here, I hope and trust that
you will have no scruples in favouring me with your commands.
I am, and shall ever be, my dear Sir Joseph, with unalterable
attachment, yours most faithfully,
Rumford.

On August 10, Tuesday, Sir C. Blagden writes: ‘I am on the point of setting
out with Count Rumford for Munich. We go first to Mannheim, and I expect
to be there next Sunday; afterwards, perhaps, through that tract of country
bordering on Switzerland which will be ceded to the Elector as a
compensation, so as to reach Munich about the latter end of this month.’
On August 30, from Munich, Sir C. Blagden wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

I wrote to you from Paris on the day of our departure, and left the letter
to be sent by post next day. Our journey hither was made during the
hottest time of this summer; we had the thermometer in the carriage
one day at 93°, and several days within a degree or two of it; but this
great heat did not injure our health or materially impair our spirits or
appetite.
It is really pleasant to see with what respect and affection Count
Rumford is treated here by all ranks of people. I do not mean to say
that he is without enemies, for surely he has many, but all, as far as I
can learn, from envy, jealousy, or competition of interests. The great
mass of the people consider him as a public benefactor, and would

rejoice to see the government of the country thrown into his hands.
This, however, as far as I can judge from what he says, as well as from
his actions, is by no means his own wish, and, indeed, I think he can
do as much good, leading at the same time a vastly pleasant life, if he
remains simply as the Elector’s friend. In our way we called at a
convent in Bavaria, and it was surprising to see how much attachment
the monks show to him, though they must consider him as a heretic. In
spite of religious differences he has found the means to persuade them
of his general good intentions. The Elector and every person in his
family behave to the Count with great respect, and are extremely
gracious to me, evidently for the purpose of showing regard to his
introduction.

On September 1, Rumford wrote to his daughter that he found his English
Garden grown more beautiful than ever, the Elector sparing no expense
upon it. But his House for the Poor had not been well attended to, though
there were few or no beggars to be met with in the streets. The Count says
that he was received by the public with the most flattering marks of esteem
and respect. The Emperor of Russia sent him an invitation to visit St.
Petersburg, but the Count could not make up his mind to the undertaking.
He writes:

My health requires that I should keep more quiet. It is all I ask here. I
have and ask no augmentation of appointments. Many cannot
understand why I am not more anxious for places and money. People
even pretend I am going to be Minister of State; but for a certainty I
am not, neither do I desire to be. I want only quiet.

In her summary of a letter from her father, dated from Mannheim,
November 30, 1802, his daughter says that ‘he alludes to his love concern:
says he has got into full employment at Munich, but would rather be in
Paris; and the certain lady would rather have him there.’
At Christmas he was still at Mannheim, and thence he wrote to the clerk at
the Institution: ‘As I have no correspondent but you who can inform me
how you are going on at the Royal Institution, you will oblige me very
much by writing to me now and then, and letting me know what you are
doing, and how the Institution stands in the public opinion. You will easily

believe that I must be very anxious to hear of its welfare and prosperity.’ He
said that he hoped to be back in April or May. In January he sent his
compliments to Dr. Young and to Mr. Davy.
Writing to his daughter again from Munich, January 22, 1803, Rumford
says he is unsettled there, and therefore that he cannot conveniently have
her with him, but that at a future time, not far distant, he will attempt it. He
spoke of the style in which he was living, having his servants, the Aichners,
with him, with his carriages. While he was at Munich he was joined by
Madame Lavoisier.
Sir C. Blagden wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

Paris, October 15, 1802.
As a good occasion of making the journey to Paris presented itself, I
left Munich about a week sooner than I originally intended, and have
now been some days in this capital.
Count Rumford was in very good health, and proposed to spend the
winter at Munich; he was going into a magnificent house, or rather
palace, lent him by one of the nobility, an old friend, in which he
meant to give concerts as he used to do. The Elector continued to treat
him with the most marked distinction, but he did not seem to be
engaging in any public business. Indeed, the country was rather in a
state of alarm, on account of the menacing appearances of the
Emperor, who evidently wants part of Bavaria as a further
compensation to the Grand Duke. The Count’s opinion when I quitted
him was that he should be in Paris next spring, and thence return to
England.

Two months later Sir C. Blagden said: ‘The Count finds the climate of
Mannheim much milder and more suitable to his constitution than that of
Munich, which is really sharp and trying.’ And afterwards he wrote
regarding the French Institute:

Count Rumford has been removed from the third class to the first, a
change which I believe he very much desired. In consequence there is

now only one vacancy to be filled up in the first class, and I think that
Volta will be the man chosen at the next election.
Unless we are all sent away by the war, I shall probably stay near a
fortnight longer than the 5th of April.
The Count expects to be in England some time in the summer. He is
very busy making experiments on heat, and says his new-invented
instruments have already put him in possession of several new and
interesting facts.

Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford’s daughter from London, August 8, 1803:

When my letter of last June was written I thought your father pretty
much fixed at Munich, and therefore ventured to suggest to you that it
might contribute to your happiness if you were to be established at that
Court. But I learn since that the Elector has set him more at his liberty,
and that in consequence he intends to return to England this autumn.
Political difficulties may possibly stand in the way of this journey, but
he hopes to avoid them. I am still as much at a loss as I was in June to
answer your question whether your father be going to marry. He is
now, as I told you in that letter, making the tour of Switzerland with a
very amiable French lady. But I have no reason to think that they have
any idea of matrimonial connexion. When the Count comes to England
she is to return to Paris; at least so he writes me word.

He wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

Count Rumford has sent me a letter from Mannheim, dated the 13th of
September. He had applied for leave to pass through France to
England, but was refused. I suppose the French Government thought
that he too would act the spy.[10]
He professes himself still uncertain whether he should not attempt the
journey by the north of Germany, but I am myself pretty well satisfied
that he will not. In the meantime he desires me to assure you that he
will certainly contrive to send the paper on Heat before Christmas. The
King and Queen of Sweden were then at Mannheim. He had been
presented to and had dined with them.

Later he wrote:

Soho Square, September 29.
My last letter from Count Rumford was of July 31, but I have learned
otherwise that he was at Geneva about the 20th of August, setting out
for a tour to the icy mountains of Savoy. He has permission, therefore,
to travel in that part of the French territory. Whether he will be allowed
to return to England through France, or whether he will come at all, I
do not yet know.

Whilst in Switzerland Rumford wrote ‘Some Observations on the Glaciers
of Chamouni, and on the Propagation of Heat in Liquids.’ This paper was
sent to the Royal Society, of which he was then vice-president, December
15. It was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1804.
On December 5, 1803, Sir C. Blagden again wrote to Rumford’s daughter:

All I can tell you about your father is this: He continued travelling with
the French lady till about the middle of September, when she left him
at Mannheim and returned to Paris. Your father had applied to the
French Government for leave to come to England through France, but
was refused. In consequence he remained at Mannheim till the middle
of October, when, having by some means, I do not know how, induced
the French Government to change their resolution, and allow him to
travel in France, he set out for Paris; and I know that he was in that
city on the 1st of November. In the last letter I received from him,
which was written the day before he set out from Mannheim, he said
that he had great hopes of being in England before the end of this year.
Since that time I have heard nothing from him. He continues very
intimate with the lady, but whether it will end in a marriage I cannot
say. My own opinion is rather inclined to the negative, yet I have no
good foundation for it.
Since this was written I have received a letter from your father, dated
at Paris, November 11. By this it is evident that he expects to marry the
French lady, though nothing is yet finally determined.

On March 12, 1804, he again writes from Liverpool:

The last account I received of your father was dated the 19th of
January. He was then at Paris, very assiduous in his attentions to the
French lady, with whom, indeed, he spent most of his time. But I
believe she had not then determined to marry him, and I am still
inclined to think she never will. In the meantime he is entirely losing
his interest in the country. His residence at Paris this winter, whilst we
were threatened with an invasion, is considered by everyone as very
improper conduct, and his numerous enemies do not fail to make the
most of it. He has quarrelled with Mr. Bernard and others of his old
friends at the Royal Institution, and they do all they can to render him
unpopular. Probably he has written to you more than once by
American ships since his residence at Paris. To me he wrote on the
12th of November, about a fortnight after his arrival there. But I expect
no other letter from him, as it would certainly be imprudent in him to
keep up a correspondence with this country during his residence in
France.

On January 22, 1804, Rumford wrote to his daughter:

I shall withhold this information from you no longer. I really do think
of marrying, though I am not yet absolutely determined on matrimony.
I made the acquaintance of this very amiable woman in Paris, who, I
believe, would have no objection in having me for a husband, and who
in all respects would be a proper match for me. She is a widow,
without children, never having had any, is about my own age, enjoys
good health, is very pleasant in society, has a handsome fortune at her
own disposal, enjoys a most respectable reputation, keeps a good
house, which is frequented by all the first philosophers and men of
eminence in the science and literature of the age, or rather of Paris,
and, what is more than all the rest, is goodness itself.... She is very
clever (according to the English signification of the word); in short,
she is another Lady Palmerston. She has been very handsome in her
day, and even now, at forty-six or forty-eight, is not bad-looking; of a
middling size, but rather en bon point than thin. She has a great deal of
vivacity and writes incomparably well.

He soon after writes again of the lady: ‘She is fond of travelling, and wishes
to make the tour of Italy with me. She appears to be most sincerely attached
to me, and I esteem and love her very much.’
On February 7, 1804, the Count writes again from Paris. He and Madame
Lavoisier were then making preparations for their marriage. She deposited
in his name one hundred and twenty thousand livres in the five per cent.
French funds, which was to go to the survivor of the three—herself,
himself, or his daughter. An income of six thousand a year out of her own
property was secured to Madame Lavoisier. Her house in Paris, as well as
the Count’s at Brompton, was to revert to the survivor of the two.
On July 2 he said:

My dear Sally,—This letter, which will be entirely devoted to very
serious and important business, will, no doubt, obtain your serious
attention.
In order to be able to complete in a legal manner some domestic
arrangements of great importance to me and to you, I have lately
found, to my no small surprise, that certificates of my birth and of the
death of my former wife are indispensably necessary. You can, no
doubt, very easily procure them—the one from the town clerk of
Woburn, the other from the town clerk of Concord. And I request that
you would do it without loss of time, and send them to me under cover,
or rather in a letter addressed to me and sent to the care of my bankers
in London. As an accident may possibly happen to that letter, I beg you
would at the same time send another set of these certificates directly to
Paris, addressed to me, rue de Clichy, No. 356.

On July 3 he wrote to Mr. Savage, the clerk of the Royal Institution:

With regard to the outstanding bills which you mention, as I intend and
expect to come to England soon, they may as well stand on till my
arrival. Some of the charges require examination. It gives me great
pleasure to hear that my house is kept in good order. I hope to inhabit
it next winter.

On August 10 the Count left Paris for Munich.

On May 1, 1805, he wrote to the clerk of the Royal Institution:

Munich, May 1.
I have written to Mr. Herries respecting the letting or selling of my
house. I hear that the Royal Institution is become a great favourite with
the public. I am sorry, however, to find that the Journals of the
Institution have not been continued. I desire you would make my
compliments to Mr. Davy, and tell him that I am still employed in my
researches on heat and light. I should be glad to know what he is
doing, for I am sure he cannot be idle. It is now more uncertain than
ever when I shall have it in my power to visit England.

To his daughter he wrote, June 18, from Munich:

I left Paris the 9th of June, and arrived here the 16th. My stay here is
uncertain, for many things are yet wanting that are indispensably
necessary for the success of such an establishment as the Academy of
Arts and Sciences.[11] I continue to pursue my philosophical
researches, and that will ever be the most pleasing occupation I can
have.

On September 17 he was again in Paris.
He wrote to his daughter:

Rue d’Anjou, No. 39, Paris, October 25, 1805.
You will have intelligence by the papers of the events that have lately
taken place in Germany. Foreseeing the storm, I left Munich the day
before the Elector left it. I have brought Aichner and his whole family,
not being willing to leave them behind. I succeeded in so winding up
my affairs in Bavaria as in the future to be able to live where I please. I
shall, of course, go from time to time to pay my respects to the Elector,
for he has ever treated me with too much respect for me to be
negligent on that account towards him.
I have informed you before of the arrangements Madame Lavoisier
and I had made in case of our marriage, which, in fact, took place

yesterday.
I have the best-founded hopes of passing my days in peace and quiet in
this paradise of a place, made what it is by me—my money, skill, and
directions. In short, it is all but a paradise, removed from the noise and
bustle of the street, facing full to the south, in the midst of a beautiful
garden of more than two acres, well planted with trees and shrubbery.
The entrance from the street is through an iron gate, by a beautiful
winding avenue, well planted, and the porter’s lodge is by the side of
this gate; a great bell to be rung in case of ceremonious visits.

The daughter’s comment on this letter is: ‘It seems there had been an
acquaintance between these parties of four years before marriage. It might
be thought a long space of time enough for perfect acquaintance. But, ah
Providence! thy ways are past finding out.’
Dr. Ellis, the biographer of Rumford, says:

An interval, though a very brief one, of cheerfulness and satisfaction,
was enjoyed by the Count after his marriage. There were but two
letters to his daughter recognising this state of content and pleasant
anticipation. He informed her that he left Munich under the pleasantest
relations with the Bavarian sovereign and his friends at that Court. He
had received a letter from Maximilian, congratulating him on his
marriage and approving of his settling himself in France, and at the
same time adding four thousand florins a year to his pay.

One letter was dated from Paris, December 20, 1805, two months after his
marriage:

I gave up my lodgings on quitting Munich, and managed so as to settle
all concerns of business. I flatter myself I am settled down here for
life, far removed from wars and all arduous duties, as a recompense for
past services, with plenty to live upon and at liberty to pursue my own
natural propensities, such as have occupied me through life—a life, as
I try to fancy, that may come under the denomination of a benefit to
mankind.

Next spring we are going to travel into Italy and the south of France, to
be gone two years, so you must patiently stay where you are for the
present.
You will wish to know what sort of a place we live in. The house is
rather an old-fashioned concern, but in a plot of over two acres of land,
in the very centre and finest part of Paris, near the Champs Elysées and
the Tuileries and principal boulevards. I have already made great
alterations in our place, and shall do a vast deal more. When these are
done I think Madame de Rumford will find it in a very different
condition from that in which it was, that being very pitiful with all her
riches.
Our style of living is really magnificent. Madame is exceedingly fond
of company, and makes a splendid figure in it herself. But she seldom
goes out, keeping open doors; that is to say, to all the great and worthy,
such as the philosophers, members of the Institute, ladies of celebrity,
&c.
On Mondays we have eight or ten of the most noted of our associates
to dinner. Thursdays are devoted to evening company, of ladies and
gentlemen, without regard to numbers. Tea and fruits are given, the
guests continuing till twelve or after. Often superb concerts are given,
with the finest vocal and instrumental performers.

At this time Sir C. Blagden wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

I have received a letter, dated November 22, from a lady in Paris,
which contains no kind of news except the following article about
Count Rumford and his lady: ‘Madame Lavoisier s’appelle à présent
Madame de Rumford. J’ai vu Madame de Rumford [the writer of the
letter has been returned to Paris only two days]. Ils ne donnent ni l’un
ni l’autre aucun détail sur leur mariage ni sur l’époque; un jour ils l’ont
dit à leurs amis, et il n’y a pas eu plus de formalité que cela. Ils sont
sur un pied fort amical, mais ils étaient ainsi depuis longtemps. La
maison de Mdme. de Rumford est charmante. Elle l’embellit tous les
jours et avec beaucoup de goût.’

On January 15, 1806, Rumford wrote to his daughter:

The newspapers will acquaint you with the other particulars of this
peace, which will occasion a great change in the political state of
Germany, as, in fact, of all Europe. I hope that I shall not, and I do not
think that I shall, lose by any of these changes. At all events the
Elector, or rather the new King, has just written me a very kind letter,
giving me hopes, rather than suggesting fears of anything of a
disagreeable nature. But dependencies like mine can never be
otherwise than uncertain, as I feel it, notwithstanding my marriage. I
may make a change, after all, but never certainly to the disadvantage
of anyone. Between you and myself, as a family secret, I am not at all
sure that two certain persons were not wholly mistaken, in their
marriage, as to each other’s characters. Time will show. But two
months barely expired, I forebode difficulties. Already I am obliged to
send my good Germans home—a great discomfort to me and wrong to
them.

On March 8, 1806, Sir C. Blagden, who had quarrelled with his friend
because he thought that Count Rumford had not defended him from the
imputation of acting as a spy in Paris in 1803, wrote to Rumford’s daughter
regarding the marriage:

They are now living together in Paris, and, as far as I can learn, very
happily. I know nothing of it from your father himself, which is not
surprising, as I some time since intimated to him my wish that our
correspondence should cease. We are not, to the best of my knowledge,
on terms of enmity, but it is not likely that any kind of confidence or
friendship should subsist between us again.

In 1806 and 1807 Count Rumford sought for relief by the pursuit of
science. He published in the Memoirs of the mathematical class of the
Institute a continuation and extension of his investigations on light and heat.
These were in the sixth, seventh, and eighth volumes, and made nine
papers. 1. ‘A Description of a New Thermoscope or Differential
Thermometer.’ 2. ‘Researches on Heat, Showing the Effect of Difference of
Surface on Radiation.’ 3. ‘Further Experiments on the Effect of Blackening
the Surface.’ 4. ‘Researches Continued on the Different Properties of
Bodies with Respect to Radiation and to Conducting Powers.’ 5. ‘Further

Researches on the Passage of Heat through Solids.’ 6. ‘Experiments on the
Heat of the Solar Rays.’ 7. ‘Remarks on the Temperature of Water at the
Maximum Density.’ He made it 41° F. or 5° C. This paper was published in
the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ 8. On the ‘Dispersion of the Light of
Lamps by Screens of Ground Glass, Silk, and so forth, with a Description
of a New Lamp.’ He had an illuminator constructed and presented to the
Institute. This paper was published in England as his sixteenth essay on the
‘Management of Light in Illuminations.’ 9. On the ‘Cooling of Liquids in
Vases of Porcelain, Gilt or not Gilt.’
In October 1806 he gave this sad account to his daughter:

My dear Child,—This being the first year’s anniversary of my
marriage, from what I wrote two months after it, you will be curious to
know how things stand at present. I am sorry to say that experience
only serves to confirm me in the belief that in character and natural
propensities Madame de Rumford and myself are totally unlike, and
never ought to have thought of marrying. We are, besides, both too
independent, both in our sentiments and habits of life, to live
peaceably together—she having been mistress all her days of her
actions, and I, with no less liberty, leading for the most part the life of
a bachelor. Very likely she is as much disaffected towards me as I am
towards her. Little it matters with me, but I call her a female dragon—
simply by that gentle name! We have got to the pitch of my insisting
on one thing and she on another.
It is possible that, had the war ceased raging, and had we gone into
Italy, where she is dying to go, and with me too, she having heard me
speak much of the delights of that country, she having been very
happy, too, in travelling with me in Switzerland, it might have
suspended difficulties, but never have effected a cure. That is out of
the question. Indeed, I have not the least idea of continuing here, and,
if possible, still less the wish, and am only planning in my mind what
steps I shall take next—to be hoped more to my advantage.
Communication with England is prohibited, and it makes me sad.

He wrote more pitiably a year later:

Rue d’Anjou, Paris, October 24, 1807.
I can do no more, my dear Sally, than simply give you the latest news
upon this the anniversary of my marriage, for I am still here, and so far
from things getting better they become worse every day. We are more
violent and more open, and more public, as may really be said, in our
quarrels. If she does not mind publicity, for a certainty I shall not. As I
write the uncouth word quarrels, I will give you an idea of one of
them.
In the first place be it known that this estate is a joint concern. I have
as good a right to it as Madame, she having paid rather more in the
beginning, but I an immensity of money in repairs and alterations, &c.
&c., besides a great deal of my own time and care spent while we have
been here.
I am almost afraid to tell you the story, my good child, lest in future
you should not be good; lest what I am about relating should set you a
bad example, make you passionate, and so on. But I had been made
very angry. A large party had been invited I neither liked nor approved
of, and invited for the sole purpose of vexing me. Our house being in
the centre of the garden, walled around, with iron gates, I put on my
hat, walked down to the porter’s lodge and gave him orders, on his
peril, not to let anyone in. Besides, I took away the keys. Madame
went down, and when the company arrived she talked with them, she
on one side, they on the other, of the high brick wall. After that she
goes and pours boiling water on some of my beautiful flowers.

And the wretched climax came the next year:

Rue d’Anjou, St. Honoré, No. 39, Paris, April 12, 1808.
After what you know, my dear Sally, of my domestic troubles you will
naturally be anxious to know the present state of things. There are no
alterations for the better. On the contrary, much worse. I have suffered
more than you can imagine for the last four weeks; but my rights are
incontestable, and I am determined to maintain them. I have the
misfortune to be married to one of the most imperious, tyrannical,
unfeeling women that ever existed, and whose perseverance in

pursuing an object is equal to her profound cunning and wickedness in
framing it.
It is impossible to continue in this way, and we shall separate. I only
wish it was well over. It is probable I shall take a house at Auteuil, a
very pleasant place, with the Seine on one side and the Bois de
Boulogne on the other, about a league from Paris. I have seen a very
handsome house there which I can have—rather dear, but that matters
little can I but find quiet. It would be truly unfortunate, after the King
of Bavaria’s late bounties joined to former ones, if I could not live
more independently than with this unfeeling, cunning, tyrannical
woman.
Little do we know people at first sight! Do you preserve my letters?
You will perceive that I have given very different accounts of this
woman, for lady I cannot call her.
Now, my dear Sally, as soon as I get settled, enjoying again
independence, I shall wish you to join me.
In the meantime believe me your affectionate Father.

The Count bought the lease of his villa at Auteuil in April 1808.
For the last two or three months of his most miserable married life he was
seriously ill. The nature of his illness is seen by the remedies that benefited
him. He told his daughter that the King of Bavaria, having knowledge of his
domestic discomforts, had recently written him a letter that had done him
much good. ‘He speaks most kindly to me, and encourages me to bear my
misfortunes like a man of firmness who has nothing to reproach himself
with.’
The separation took place amicably on June 30, 1809. He soon after wrote
to his daughter:

I find myself relieved from an almost insupportable burden. I cannot
repeat too much how happy I am, gaining every day in health, which,
from vexations, had become seriously deranged. I am persuaded it is
all for the best. After the scenes which I have recently passed through I

realise, as never before, the sweets of quiet, liberty, and independence.
My household consists of the most faithful, honest people, attached to
me, without dissension, bribery, or malice. And, above all, that eternal
contradiction. Oh! happy, thrice happy, am I to be my own man again!

Later he wrote:

Madame de Rumford is well. I see her sometimes, though very
seldom. After what is past a reconciliation is impossible. She now
repents of her conduct, but it is too late. The less I see her the better. I
now enjoy peace and tranquillity, and my health improves every day.

Again:

Auteuil, October 24, 1809.
Dear Sally,—The ‘Mentor’ arrived some weeks since, when I was
expecting you. Without doubt the reason you did not come was owing
to your not finding proper protection, and in these terrible times of war
you cannot be too particular. This unfortunate war chains me to the
spot, for I am so situated between three governments that I am obliged
almost to turn into a cypher. It is to England I want to go, but dare not
risk it. And it is there I should much prefer receiving you than here.
By the date of this letter you will perceive it to be the anniversary of
my wedding-day with Madame Lavoisier to-day four years. I own I
make choice of this day to write to you, in reality to testify joy, but joy
that I am away from her, as has been the case for the last six months. It
would be difficult to describe what I suffered there for the last year. I
often wished for you, but am now exceedingly glad you did not come,
as it would have made you unhappy and perhaps have done me no
good. I was made quite ill at last, but now, thank Heaven, I am
recovering my health and spirits fast. I am like one risen from the
dead. Adieu, my dear child. You will hear from me soon again, and I
hope to see you soon. I have some pretty rooms prepared for you. I had
one of the Aichners to come and wait upon you, but she did not exactly
please me, and I sent her back again. My old servants, her father and

mother, are nicely established, owing to mine and the Elector’s
kindness, at Munich, and are very happy.

Auteuil, November 12, 1809.
My dear Daughter,—Here is another month past, and you do not
come. I know all the difficulties of travelling either by sea or by land,
so do not blame you; am only sorry. Sorry on several accounts—on
one account that I want to see you. For do you recollect, my dear, that
it is many years since we saw each other? We will not say how many,
lest the time should seem longer. And little did I think, when you
quitted me at Brompton, it would have been for such a length of time,
nor would it have been but for this unfortunate marriage. Never were
there two more distinct beings than this woman (for I cannot call her a
lady) before and after marriage. But undoubtedly she was pushed on
by those looking forward to her fortune, fearing some of it would light
on me. She is the most avaricious woman I ever saw, and the most
cunning—things which I could not possibly know before marriage.
I suffered more for the last fourteen months—indeed, the whole three
years and a half that I lived with her—than I had an idea I could have
gone through. Luckily I have money enough of my own, but war and
these terrible times prevent me from receiving money from Bavaria, or
my half-pay from England. Yet I am obliged to keep up a certain
consequence, besides being disgusted with everything. I am afraid you
will have to quit the world if you stay with me.

Auteuil, January 10, 1810.
Here month after month arrives, but you do not come. I am very
impatient to see you, but I am more anxious lest something should
happen to you on the way, for discord reigns everywhere.

Later he said:

I am absolutely obliged to set out for Munich, so if you come in the
time you must make yourself comfortable. If I find you here on my

return, it will give me much pleasure.
The King has been in Paris, and invited me so kindly I thought it my
duty to go; but he assures me I shall not be detained there on any
business of importance.

On his arrival in Munich he wrote:

My reception here has been most kind and flattering. The whole town
is in expectation of seeing me again fixed here and employed in the
public affairs of the country. But I know positively, and it is my
greatest consolation, that I shall be permitted to return quietly to my
retreat at Auteuil.
Adieu, my dear Sally. I shall write to you again, I think, before leaving
Munich; but you had better not write me, lest I should be already set
out on my return.
My health is perfectly good, and I am very happy. All my late
sufferings are forgotten. I feel as if just relieved from an insupportable
weight. God be thanked for my delivery! All your friends here have
desired to be remembered to you. Adieu, my dear Sally; make yourself
as comfortable and happy as you can, and be assured that I have at
length quite recovered my reason, and that I am now persuaded that all
that has happened to me has been most fortunate for me. I am now a
free man.

Munich, October 24, 1810.
You will perceive that this is the anniversary of my marriage. I am
happy to call it to mind, that I may compare my present situation with
the three and a half horrible years I was living with that tyrannical,
avaricious, unfeeling woman. You can have no idea, my dear Sally,
what I had to suffer during the last fourteen months—indeed, during
the whole three years and a half I lived in that house—but the closing
six months was a purgatory sufficiently painful to do away the sins of
a thousand years.

The Prince Royal was married on the 12th, and we have had continued
fêtes and rejoicings. The English Garden is in high beauty; no expense
is spared upon it. I am allowed to dine with the King pretty much as
often as I wish, but to-morrow I take leave of him, of Munich, and the
rest of my friends; so you will soon, my dear Sally, see me at Auteuil.

In December 1811 his daughter arrived at Auteuil, and found him in
excellent health. She writes:

I had not been many days at Auteuil before we had a visit from his
separated lady, for they seemed to be on good terms—at least on
visiting terms. The lady was gracious to me, and I was charmed with
her, nor did I ever after find reason to be otherwise, for she was truly
an admirable character. Their disagreements must have arisen from
their independence of character and means; being used always to
having their own ways. Their pursuits in some particulars were
different. He was fond of his experiments, and she of company.

A picture of Madame de Rumford was thus drawn by M. Guizot in 1841,
five years after her death:

Soit affection pour son mari, soit disposition naturelle, Madame
Lavoisier s’associa à ses travaux comme un compagnon ou un disciple.
Ceux-là même qui ne l’ont connue que bien loin de la jeunesse ont pu
démêler que sous une apparence un peu froide et rude, et presque
uniquement préoccoupée de sa vie de société, c’était une personne
capable d’être fortement saisie par un sentiment, par une idée, et de s’y
adonner avec passion. Elle vivait dans le laboratoire de M. Lavoisier,
l’aidait dans ses expériences, écrivait ses observations sous sa dictée,
traduisait, définait pour lui. Elle apprit à graver, pour qu’il fût sûr d’un
ouvrier exact jusqu’au scrupule, et les planches du ‘Traité de Chimie’
furent bien réellement l’œuvre de ses mains. Elle publia, parce qu’il le
désirait, la traduction d’un ouvrage du chimiste anglais Kirwan sur ‘la
Force des Acides et la Proportion des Substances qui composent les
Sels neutres,’ et elle avait acquis, de la science qu’ils cultivaient
ensemble, une intelligence si complète que lorsqu’en 1805, onze ans
après la mort de Lavoisier, elle voulut réunir et publier ses mémoires
scientifiques, elle put se charger seule de ce travail et l’accomplit en

effet, en y joignant une préface parfaitement simple, où ne se laisse
entrevoir aucune ombre de prétention.
Un intérieur aussi animé par affection réciproque et des occupations
favorites, une grande fortune, beaucoup de considération, une bonne
maison à l’Arsenal, recherchée par les hommes les plus distingués,
tous les plaisirs de l’esprit, de la richesse, de la jeunesse, c’était là, à
coup sûr, une existence brillante et douce. Cette existence fut frappée,
foudroyée par la Révolution, comme toutes celles qui l’entouraient. En
1794 Mdme. Lavoisier vit monter le même jour sur l’échafaud son
père et son mari, et elle n’échappa elle-même, apres un
emprisonnement assez court, qu’en plongeant avec la patience la plus
persévérante dans la plus complète et silencieuse obscurité.
Quand les proscriptions cessèrent, quand l’ordre et la justice revinrent
apaiser et ranimer en même temps la société, Mdme. Lavoisier reprit
sa place dans le monde, entourée de toute une génération de savants
illustres, les amis, les disciples, les successeurs de Lavoisier, Lagrange,
Laplace, Berthollet, Cuvier, Prony, Humboldt, Arago, charmés en
honorant sa veuve de trouver dans sa maison, en retour de l’éclat qu’ils
y répandaient, les agréments d’une hospitalité élégante. M. de
Rumford arriva parmi eux. Il était alors au service du roi de Bavière et
jouissait dans le public d’une grande popularité scientifique; son esprit
était élevé, sa conversation pleine d’intérêt, ses manières empreintes de
bonté. Il plut à Mdme. Lavoisier; il s’accordait avec ses habitudes, ses
goûts, on pourrait presque dire avec ses souvenirs. Elle espéra
recommencer en quelque sorte son bonheur. Elle l’épousa le 22
October, 1805, heureuse d’offrir à un homme distingué une grande
fortune et la plus agréable existence.
Leurs caractères ne se convinrent point. A la jeunesse seule il est facile
d’oublier au sein d’un tendre bonheur la perte de l’indépendence. Des
questions délicates furent élevées, des susceptibilités s’éveillèrent.
Mdme. de Rumford en se remariant avait formellement stipulé dans
son contrat qu’elle se ferait appeler Madame Lavoisier de Rumford.
M. de Rumford, qui y avait consenti, finit par le trouver mauvais. Elle
persista. ‘J’ai regardé comme un devoir, comme une religion,’ écrivait-
elle en 1808, ‘de ne point quitter le nom de Lavoisier.... Comptant sur

la parole de M. de Rumford je n’en aurais pas fait un article de mes
engagements civils avec lui, si je n’avais voulu laisser un acte public
de mon respect pour M. Lavoisier et une preuve de la générosité de M.
de Rumford. C’est un devoir pour moi de tenir à une détermination qui
a toujours été une des conditions de notre union; et j’ai dans le fond de
mon âme l’intime conviction que M. de Rumford ne me désapprouvera
pas et qu’après avoir pris le temps d’y réfléchir ... il me permettra de
continuer à remplir un devoir que je regarde comme sacré.’
Ce fut encore là une espérance trompée. Après des agitations
domestiques, que M. de Rumford avec plus de tact eût rendues moins
bruyantes, la séparation devint nécessaire, et elle eut lieu à l’aimable le
30 juin, 1809.
Depuis cette époque et pendant vingt-sept ans aucun événement, on
pourrait dire aucun incident, ne dérangea plus Mdme. de Rumford
dans sa noble et agréable façon de vivre. Elle n’appartint plus qu’à ses
amis et à la société, tantôt étendue, tantôt resserrée, qu’elle recevait
avec un mélange assez singulier de rudesse et de politesse, toujours de
très-bonne compagnie et d’une grande intelligence du monde même
dans ses brusqueries de langage et ses fantaisies d’autorité.

In February 1812 Count Rumford gave his mother 10,000 dollars in 3½ per
cent. stock as a free gift, and he wrote to her:

I desire that you will accept of it as a token of my dutiful affection for
you, and of my gratitude for the kind care you took of me in the early
part of my life. I have the greatest satisfaction in being able to show
my gratitude for all your goodness to me, and to contribute to your
ease and comfort. I request that you will consider this donation as
being perfectly free and unconditional, and that you would enjoy and
dispose of what is now your property just as you shall think best and
most conducive to your happiness and to your satisfaction, without any
regard to any former arrangements you have made at my request.
My health continues to be good, and I yet feel none of those infirmities
of age which sometimes render the evening of life painful. I have the
satisfaction to think that I have done my duty through life, and that is a

great consolation to me as I approach the end of my course. I shall
never cease to be, my dear mother, your dutiful and affectionate child,
Benjamin.

On January 23 he had a paper read before the Royal Society which he
published as his seventeenth essay. It was an ‘Inquiry Concerning the
Source of the Light which is Manifested in the Combustion of Inflammable
Bodies.’
His object was to prove by decisive experiments that the light which
accompanies the complete combustion of any given quantity of pure
inflammable matter is variable, and therefore light cannot be one of the
chemical products of combustion.

If light were a substance, as has been supposed, it seems highly
probable that means would long since have been found to discover
where and how it exists; but if it be nothing more than a blow given to
the eye by the repercussion of an ethereal fluid which touches that
organ and at the same time every other body in the universe, it is
evident that all attempts to discover it in a state of combination must
be vain.
Nobody, I imagine, ever thought of searching for sound in a
fulminating powder. Is it more reasonable to search there for the light
that accompanies the combustion of substances?
The greatest light may be obtained by preserving the heat of the flame.
Thus several flat flames placed together, in order that they may
mutually cover and defend each other against the powerful cooling
influence of surrounding bodies, form a lamp that has answered far
beyond my most sanguine expectation.
I lose no time in giving an account of the principles on which it is
constructed, in hopes that others may be induced to assist in improving
it.
So far from being jealous of their success I shall rejoice in it, and shall
ever be most ready to contribute to it by all the means in my power.

On February 24 he had a paper read before the French Institute on the ‘Heat
Manifested in the Combustion of Inflammable Substances.’
On August 1 he published his last essay, the eighteenth, of the ‘Excellent
Qualities of Coffee and the Art of Making it in the Highest Perfection.’
In 1813 the founder of the Royal Institution once more met Davy, then the
great discoverer who by his eloquence and genius had saved the Rumford
Institution from an early death.
In the ‘Life of Davy,’ by Dr. Paris, it is said, probably on the authority of
Mr. Underwood, ‘On November 10 they (Underwood and Davy) dined at
Auteuil with Count Rumford, at this time a prisoner in France, who showed
his laboratory to Davy. This was exactly eight months before the poor,
broken-hearted Count sank into the grave, the victim of domestic torment
and of the persecutions of the French savans, instigated by his wife, the
widow of the celebrated Lavoisier.’
The following account of Count Rumford’s life at Auteuil was probably
also written by his friend Mr. Underwood. It was published in the
‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in 1814:

After the death of his worthy friend, the illustrious Lagrange, he saw
only his next-door neighbour, the Senator Leconteux Caneleux; Mr.
Underwood, a member of the Royal Institution, who assisted him in
his experiments; and an old friend, Mr. Parker, a learned American,
who possesses a splendid mansion in Paris and a very fine landed
estate and agricultural establishment in its environs. He ceased to
attend the sittings of the National Institute; but for the perpetual
secretary, Cuvier, a man as morally estimable as his talents are superior
to his French fellow-members, he always preserved the highest
admiration and esteem.
One object of his later occupations was a work—not yet finished,
though it has been constantly going on for more than twenty years—on
the ‘Nature and Effects of Order,’ which, had he been spared to finish
it, would probably have been one of the most valuable presents ever
made to domestic society. No man in all his habits had more the spirit
of order; everything was classed; no object was ever allowed to remain

an instant out of its place the moment he had done with it, and he was
never behind his time in an appointment a single instant.
He was also latterly employed on a series of experiments on the
propagation of heat in solids. He had by him several unpublished
works, particularly one of considerable interest on Meteorolites, in
which he demonstrated that they came from regions beyond the
atmosphere of the earth. He has left several memoirs in French (of
which he had a few copies printed for the use of his friends) on the
quantity of heat obtained by the combustion of various substances and
the relative quantity of light from others, with a description of different
improvements in the construction of lamps, which he had the
satisfaction of seeing very generally adopted in Paris. His admirable
paper on the ‘Advantages of Broad Wheels to Carriages’ is well
known. He put this in practice in his own chariot; but, though there
could be no doubt of their advantages, they were not used by others,
the Count’s being the only carriage in Paris that had them. Nor did
anyone follow (which is not to be wondered at) his whimsical winter
dress, which was entirely white, even his hat. This he adopted
agreeably to the law of nature, that more heated rays are thrown from a
dark body than from a light one. I do not know whether his very
simple, and I may add perfect, calorimeter is known in England. The
apparatus with which he was making a series of experiments on the
relative conducting powers of different solid bodies for heat, and
which death prevented his completing, is of the greatest beauty. It
consists of a cylindrical vessel of cork (which is a perfect non-
conductor of heat), in the centre of the bottom of which the small solid
cylinder of the substance to be experimented upon is fitted into an
aperture of exactly the same diameter as the cylindrical vessel, which
is then filled with water, and heat from the flame of a spirit-lamp is
applied to the lower extremity of the substance; the time the heat takes
to pass through and raise the temperature of the water indicates the
relative conducting powers of the different substances through which it
is made to pass. He has repeatedly declared to me it was his decided
opinion that heat and light were the result of vibrations in bodies, and
were not bodies themselves. He had lately brought to the greatest
perfection a lamp for burning spirits of wine, and by which all

explosion was rendered impossible. This in France is of the greatest
convenience, where, from the low price of alcohol, it is nearly as
economical as any other fuel for heating water.
The Count met with considerable plague in his pursuits from the
malignant disposition and jealousies of his fellow-members of the
National Institute, in consequence of having differed in opinion on
capillary attraction from their despotic leader, Laplace. He often used
to exclaim that no one who had not lived a considerable time in France
could imagine how contemptible a nation they are, and how void of
honour and even honesty. Whenever he ordered any instrument at a
mathematical instrument maker’s a similar one was instantly made for
some one of the Great Nation, though of the intended use they were at
the moment ignorant; but the hope of supplanting a foreigner and of
arrogating to themselves a discovery (a common practice with them)
incited them to adopt this dishonourable practice. This forced him to
send for a workman from Germany, whom he constantly employed,
and who lived in his house. I was one day with the Count at a sitting of
the first class of the Institute, when we heard one of the leading
members declare that they would set their faces against any discovery
which did not originate among themselves.
The Count displayed extraordinary spirited conduct and firmness in
refusing the French the passage of the city of Munich. He used often to
dwell with much pleasure on having been the means of bringing
forward two celebrated characters, the Bavarian general Wieden and
Sir Humphry Davy—the former originally a lawyer, or a land steward,
and possessing great military dispositions; Count Rumford, then
Minister of War to the Elector of Bavaria, gave him a commission: and
the latter was recommended to him when he had the direction of the
Royal Institution by Mr. Underwood, and was made Lecturer on
Chemistry.
The climate of France agreeing with him far better than that of
Bavaria, he received permission of the King of Bavaria to reside there;
and his half-pay as lieutenant-general in his service and pension of
retreat as minister of his late father [uncle] were regularly paid him,
amounting to about twelve hundred pounds sterling per annum. It was

this which prevented his return to England, as Bonaparte would not, in
that case, have allowed his vassal, the King of Bavaria, to have paid
the Count.
When Bavaria joined in the coalition for the emancipation of Europe it
was agitated in Bonaparte’s council to send the Count away. However,
as it was proved that he scarcely ever stirred out of his house, he was
allowed to remain.
The German, French, Spanish, and Italian languages were as familiar
to the Count as the English, both in speaking and writing. His only
recreations were playing at billiards against himself, for want of one to
play with, and walking in his garden, of which he was very fond,
though ignorant of botany and even of the common names of the
commonest plants. He was very fond of chess, at which he played
well, but rarely enjoyed this pleasure, as he said that after a few
minutes’ play his feet became like ice and his head like fire. He drew
with great skill the designs of his own inventions, but of painting and
sculpture he had no knowledge and little feeling; nor had he any taste
for poetry. He had, however, great taste for landscape-gardening.
His habits of life were latterly most abstemious, so much so that he
had not sufficient vital strength to resist a nervous fever, which carried
him off on the 21st of August, after three days’ illness, when he was on
the eve of returning to England, to which as long as he lived he
retained the most devoted attachment.

In the ‘Moniteur Universel’ of August 25, 1814, the death and burial of
Count Rumford are mentioned. An address was pronounced over his grave
by the Baron Benjamin Delessert, his friend and banker in Paris, on the
24th.
The news of Count Rumford’s illness and burial reached the French
Academy at the same time, so that the members were unable to attend his
funeral. On January 9, 1815, Baron Cuvier read his éloge to the Academy.
In it he said:

Nous l’y avons vu, en effet, pendant dix ans honoré des Français et des
étrangers, estimé des amis des sciences, partageant leurs travaux,

aidant de ses avis jusqu’aux moindres artisans, gratifiant noblement le
public de tout ce qu’il inventait chaque jour d’utile. Rien n’y aurait
manqué à la douceur de son existence si l’aménité de son commerce
avait égalé son ardeur pour l’utilité publique.
Mais il faut l’avouer, il perçait dans sa conversation et dans toute sa
manière d’être un sentiment qui devait paraître fort extraordinaire dans
un homme si constamment bien traité par les autres, et qui leur avait
fait lui-même tant de bien: c’est que c’était sans les aimer et sans les
estimer qu’il avait rendu tous ces services à ses semblables.
Apparemment que les passions viles qu’il avait observées dans les
misérables commis à ses soins ou ces autres passions non moins viles
que sa fortune avait excitées parmi ses rivaux l’avaient ulcéré contre la
nature humaine. Aussi ne pensait-il point que l’on doit confier au
commun des hommes le soin de leur bien-être; ce besoin qui leur
semble si naturel d’examiner comment ils sont régis n’était à ses yeux
qu’un produit factice des fausses lumières. Il avait sur l’esclavage à
peu près les idées d’un planteur, et il regardait le gouvernement de la
Chine comme le plus voisin de la perfection, parce qu’en livrant le
peuple au pouvoir absolu des seuls hommes instruits, et en élevant
chacun de ceux-ci dans la hiérarchie selon le degré de son instruction,
il fait en quelque sorte de tant de millions de bras les organes passifs
de la volonté de quelques bonnes têtes—doctrine que nous exposons
sans prétendre la justifier en rien et que nous savons de reste être peu
propre à faire fortune chez nos nations européennes. M. de Rumford a
éprouvé lui-même à plus d’une reprise qu’il n’est pas si aisé dans
l’occident qu’en Chine d’engager les autres à n’être que des bras; et
cependant personne ne s’était autant préparé que lui à bien se servir de
bras qu’on lui aurait soumis. Un empire tel qu’il le concevait ne lui
aurait pas été plus difficile à conduire que ses casernes et ses maisons
de pauvres; il se confiait surtout pour cela à la puissance de l’ordre. Il
appelait l’ordre l’auxiliaire nécessaire du génie, le seul instrument
possible d’un véritable bien et presque une divinité subordonnée
régulatrice de ce bas monde. Il se proposait d’en faire l’objet d’un
ouvrage qu’il regardait comme devant être plus important que tous
ceux qu’il a écrits; mais on n’en a trouvé dans ses papiers que quelques
matériaux informes. Lui-même de sa personne était sur tous les points

et sous tous les rapports imaginables le modèle de l’ordre; ses besoins,
ses plaisirs, ses travaux, étaient calculés comme ses expériences. Il ne
buvait que de l’eau: il ne mangeait que de la viande grillée ou rôtie,
parce que la viande bouillie donne sous le même volume un peu moins
d’aliment. Il ne se permettait enfin rien de superflu, pas même un pas
ni une parole, et c’était dans le plus strict qu’il prenait le mot superflu.
C’était sans doute un moyen de consacrer plus sûrement toutes ses
forces au bien, mais ce n’en était pas un d’être agréable dans la société
de ses pareils; le monde veut un peu plus d’abandon, et il est tellement
fait qu’une certaine hauteur de perfection lui paraît souvent un défaut
quand on ne met pas autant d’efforts à la dissimuler qu’on en a mis à
l’acquérir.
Quels que fussent au reste les sentiments de M. de Rumford pour les
hommes, ils ne diminuaient en rien son respect pour la divinité. Il n’a
négligé dans ses ouvrages aucune occasion d’exprimer sa religieuse
admiration pour la Providence et d’y offrir à l’admiration des autres les
précautions innombrables et variées par lesquelles elle a pourvu à la
conservation de ses créatures; peut-être même son système politique
venait-il de ce qu’il croyait que les princes doivent faire comme elle et
prendre soin de nous sans nous en rendre compte.

Cuvier finished his éloge with this epitaph: ‘L’homme qui par l’heureux
choix des sujets de ses travaux a su lui donner à la fois pour appui l’estime
des savans et la reconnaissance des malheureux.’
Dr. Young, who, whilst Professor at the Royal Institution, knew Rumford
well, said of him in the ‘Encyclopedia Britannica:’

Count Rumford certainly possessed considerable facility of
conversation, and there was a very laudable spirit of originality in his
views and mode of reasoning, although he had never leisure to acquire
profound learning in any department of study. In person he was above
the middle size, with a dignified and pleasing expression of
countenance and a mildness in his manner and tone of voice. He was
ambitious of fame and distinction, and had too great a propensity to
dictate without sufficiently regarding the opinions of those who were

of equal authority with himself. His mode of life was abstemious, and
his health was even supposed to have suffered from too great
abstinence, though his regimen was much more the result of medical
opinion regarding his health than of his own peculiar taste for
temperance.

By his will, of which Lafayette was a witness, he made a bequest to his
daughter, and another to Harvard College

for the purpose of founding, under the direction and government of the
corporation, overseers, and governors of that university, a new
institution and professorship, in order to teach by regular courses of
academical and public lectures, accompanied with proper experiments,
the utility of the physical and mathematical sciences for the
improvement of the useful arts, and for the extension of the industry,
prosperity, happiness, and well-being of society.

He left all his military books and papers to the Government of the United
States, and the snuff-box given to him by the Emperor of Austria to Baron
Delessert, and his gold enamelled watch to his friend Mr. Parker. He thus
showed his regard for Davy:

I give to Sir Humphry Davy, Knight, Professor of Chemistry in the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, my plain gold watch, as a token of
my esteem.

Madame de Rumford gave up her interest in the lease of the Count’s house
at Brompton to his daughter, who went to London in May 1815 and lived
there for twenty years, during which period she returned to Paris for three
years. In 1835 she went to America, and then she returned to Paris until
1844, when she revisited America. In the room in which she was born she
died, when seventy-eight years of age, December 21, 1852. She left her
property chiefly to form the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum for the Poor and
Needy at Concord.
The memory of Count Rumford is preserved in Munich by a stone
monument in the English Garden, erected by public subscription in 1795,

and by a bronze statue placed in 1867 by the present King in the finest
street in the city.
In Paris a street once bore his name, and his gravestone in the cemetery at
Auteuil is the only material mark of his residence in France.
In America the Rumford medals which he founded, and the institutions he
originated, form his enduring monuments.
In England the highest scientific reward which the Royal Society can
bestow, and the place where the greatest scientific discoveries of this
century have been made, should both in gratitude be inseparably united
with the name of Rumford.

CHAPTER III.
EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
INSTITUTION, 1799-1800;
WITH THE LIFE OF PROFESSOR GARNETT.
The history of the Proposals for founding the Royal Institution is thus given
by Count Rumford in 1799:

Having long been in a habit of considering all useful improvements as
being purely mechanical, or as depending on the perfection of
machinery and address in the management of it, and of considering
profit (which depends much on the perfection of machinery) as the
only incitement to industry, I was naturally led to meditate on the
means that might be employed with advantage to diffuse the
knowledge and facilitate the general introduction of such
improvements; and the plan which is now submitted to the public was
the result of these investigations.
In the beginning of the year 1796 I gave a faint sketch of this plan in
my second essay; but, being under a necessity of returning soon to
Germany, I had not leisure to pursue it farther at that time, and I was
obliged to content myself with having merely thrown out a loose idea,
as it were by accident, which I thought might possibly attract attention.
After my return to Munich, I opened myself more fully on the subject
in my correspondence with my friends in this country, and particularly
in my letters to Thomas Bernard, Esq., who, as is well known, is one
of the founders and most active members of the Society for Bettering
the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor.
This gentleman I found, on my return to England in September 1798,
not only agreeing with me in opinion in regard to the utility and
importance of the plan I had proposed, but very solicitous that some

attempts should be made to carry it into immediate execution in this
capital.
After several consultations, that were held at Mr. Bernard’s apartments
in the Foundling Hospital and at the house of the Lord Bishop of
Durham, at which several gentlemen assisted who are well known as
zealous promoters of useful improvement, it was agreed that Mr.
Bernard should report to the Committee of the Society for Bettering
the Condition of the Poor the general result of these consultations, and
the unanimous desire of the gentlemen who assisted at them, that
means might be devised for making an attempt to carry the scheme
proposed into execution.
The gentlemen of the Committee agreed with me entirely in the
opinion I had taken the liberty to express, that the Institution which it
was proposed to form would be too conspicuous, and too interesting
and important, to be made an appendix to any other existing
establishment, and, consequently, that it must stand alone, and on its
own proper basis; but as these gentlemen had no direct communication
with any persons, except with the members of their own Society, they
appointed a Committee, consisting of eight persons, from their own
body, to confer with me on the subject of the plan.[12]
I had the honour to meet this Committee on this business on the 31st of
January, at the house of Richard Sulivan, Esq., where a plan I had
previously drawn up for forming the Institution in question was read
and examined, and its principles unanimously approved; but, as some
of the gentlemen present were of opinion that the plan entered too
much into detail to be submitted to the public in the beginning of the
business, I undertook to revise it, and to endeavour to accommodate it
to the wishes of the Committee.
Having made such alterations in it as I thought might satisfy the
Committee, I sent a corrected copy of it to them, accompanied by the
following letter:

‘Gentlemen,—Inclosed I have the honour to send you a corrected
copy of the Proposals I took the liberty of laying before you on

Thursday last, for forming in this capital, by private subscription,
a public Institution for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating
the general and speedy introduction of new and useful mechanical
inventions and improvements; and also for teaching, by regular
courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application
of the new discoveries in science to the improvement of arts and
manufactures, and in facilitating the means of procuring the
comforts and conveniences of life.
‘The tendency of the proposed Institution to excite a spirit of
inquiry and of improvement amongst all ranks of society, and to
afford the most effectual assistance to those who are engaged in
the various pursuits of useful industry, did not escape your
observation; and it is, I am persuaded, from a conviction of the
utility of the plan, or its tendency to increase the comforts and
enjoyments of individuals, and at the same time to promote the
public prosperity, that you have been induced to take it into your
serious consideration. I shall be much flattered if it should meet
with your approbation and with your support.
‘Though I am perfectly ready to take any share in the business of
carrying the scheme into execution, in case it should be adopted,
that can be required, yet there is one preliminary request which I
am desirous may be granted me, and that is, that the Government
may be previously made acquainted with the scheme before any
steps are taken towards carrying it into execution; and also that
his Majesty’s Ministers may be informed that it is in the
contemplation of the founders of the Institution to accept of my
services in the arrangement and management of it.
‘The peculiar situation in which I stand in this country, as a
subject of his Majesty, and being at the same time, by his
Majesty’s special commission, granted under his royal sign
manual, engaged in the service of a foreign prince, this
circumstance renders it improper for me to engage myself in this
important business, notwithstanding that it might perhaps be
considered merely as a private concern, without the knowledge
and the approbation of the Government.

‘I am quite certain that my engaging in this, or in any other
business in which there is any prospect of my being of any public
use in this country, will meet with the most cordial approbation of
his Most Serene Highness the Elector Palatine, in whose service I
am; for I know his sentiments on that subject; and although I do
not imagine that his Majesty or his Majesty’s Ministers would
disapprove of my giving my assistance in carrying this scheme
into execution, yet I feel it to be necessary that their approbation
should be asked and obtained; and, if I might be allowed to
express my sentiments on another matter, which, no doubt, has
already occurred to everyone of the gentlemen to whom I now
address myself, I should say that, in my opinion, it would not only
be proper, but even necessary, to inform Government of the
nature of the scheme that is proposed and of every circumstance
relative to it, and at the same time to ask their countenance and
support in carrying it into execution; for although it may be
allowable in this free country for individuals to unite in forming
and executing extensive plans for diffusing useful knowledge and
promoting the public good, yet it appears to me that no such
establishment should ever be formed in any country without the
knowledge and approbation of the Executive Government.
‘Trusting that you will be so good as to excuse the liberty I take in
making this observation, and that you will consider my doing it as
being intended rather to justify myself, by explaining my
principles than from any idea of its being necessary on any other
account, I have the honour to be, with much respect, Gentlemen,
your most obedient and most humble Servant,
(Signed) ‘Rumford.

‘Brompton Row, February 7, 1799.
(Addressed)

‘To the Gentlemen named by the Committee of the Society for
Bettering the Condition of the Poor to confer with Count
Rumford on his scheme for forming a new Establishment in

London for Diffusing the Knowledge of Useful Mechanical
Improvements, &c.’

The Committee above mentioned having, in the meantime, made their
report to the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the
Comforts of the Poor, that Society came to the following resolution:

‘At a meeting of the Society for Bettering the Condition and
Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, on Friday, the 1st of
February, 1799,
‘Present:

The Bishop of Durham, in the chair,
Patrick Colquhoun, Esq.,
Thomas Bernard, Esq.,
William Manning, Esq.,
John Sullivan, Esq.,
The Rev. Dr. Glasse,
John J. Angerstein, Esq.,
William Wilberforce, Esq.,
Richard Joseph Sulivan, Esq.,
Matthew Martin, Esq., Secretary,

the Committee appointed to confer with Count Rumford reported that
they had had a conference with the Count, and that they were satisfied
that the Institution proposed by him would be extremely beneficial and
interesting to the community; that, in order to provide the pecuniary
funds of the Society at its commencement, it was proposed that
subscribers of fifty guineas each should be the perpetual proprietors of
the Institution, and be entitled each to perpetual transferable tickets for
the lectures and for admission to the apartments of the Institution; and
that as soon as thirty such subscribers offered it was proposed to call a
meeting of those thirty subscribers, in order to lay the plan before them
and elect managers for the Institution.

‘Resolved,—That the said report be approved of, and that it be referred
to the gentlemen of the Select Committee to communicate the outlines
of the plan to the members of the Committee of the Society, and to
such other persons as they shall think fit, desiring that those who wish
to have their names inserted among the original subscribers to the
Institution would communicate their wish to the Special Committee.
‘Extracted from the Minutes.
‘M. Martin, Secretary.’
In consequence of this resolution a paper was printed by the gentlemen
of the Select Committee containing the outlines of the plan, and sent
round privately among their friends and others whom they thought
likely to countenance the scheme, accompanied by a printed copy of
the foregoing resolution, with a request that those who were willing to
allow their names to be put down among the original subscribers and
proprietors of the Institution would be so good as to communicate their
intentions by a letter addressed to Thomas Bernard, Esq., at the
Foundling Hospital.
The Proposals that were circulated in this manner met with so much
approbation that fifty-eight of the most respectable names were sent in
before measures could be taken for holding a meeting, and these
successful beginnings encouraged those who were principally
concerned in forming and bringing forward the plan to make some
alterations in it, and particularly in respect to the time and manner of
choosing the first set of managers, and in regard to an application for a
charter for the Institution, which it has been determined to make, in
order to place the establishment on a more solid and more respectable
foundation, and to give full security to the subscribers against all
future claims upon them.
In this stage of the business, and especially as a meeting of the
subscribers is to be held in a few days for the purpose of determining
what other steps shall be taken for carrying the proposed plan into
execution, I have thought it to be my duty to lay all these particulars
before the subscribers, and at the same time to state to them at length
the general outline of the plan I have taken the liberty to propose, and

in the execution of which, if it should be adopted, I am ready to take
any part that the subscribers may wish me to take.
Rumford.
Brompton Row, March 4, 1799.
The Proposals for forming by subscription, in the Metropolis of the
British Empire, a Public Institution for diffusing the knowledge and
facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical
inventions and improvements, and for teaching by courses of
philosophical lectures and experiments the application of science to
the common purposes of life were these:

The two great objects of the Institution being the speedy and general
diffusion of the knowledge of all new and useful improvements, in
whatever quarter of the world they may originate; and teaching the
application of scientific discoveries to the improvement of arts and
manufactures in this country, and to the increase of domestic comfort
and convenience, these objects will be constantly had in view, not only
in the arrangement and execution of the plan, but also in the future
management of the Institution.
As much care will be taken to confine the establishment within its
proper limits as to place it on a solid foundation, and to render it an
ornament to the capital and an honour to the British nation.
In the execution of the plan it is proposed to proceed in the following
manner:
A place having been fixed on by the managers for forming the
Institution,
Spacious and airy rooms will be prepared for the reception and public
exhibition of all such new and mechanical inventions and
improvements as shall be thought worthy of the public notice, and
more especially of all such contrivances as shall tend to increase the
conveniences and comforts of life, to promote domestic economy, to
improve taste, or to promote useful industry.

The most perfect models of the full size will be provided and exhibited
in different parts of this public repository of all such new mechanical
inventions and improvements as are applicable to the common
purposes of life. Under this head will be included:

Cottage Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils for Cottages.
A complete Kitchen for a Farm-house, with all the necessary
Utensils.
A complete Kitchen, with Kitchen Utensils, for the family of a
gentleman of fortune.
A complete Laundry for a gentleman’s family, or for a public
hospital, including Boilers, Washing-room, Ironing-room,
Drying-room, &c.
Several of the most approved German, Swedish, and Russian
Stoves, for heating rooms and passages.

In order that those who visit this establishment may be enabled to
acquire more just ideas of these various mechanical contrivances, and
of the circumstances on which their peculiar merit principally
depends, the machinery exhibited will, as far as it shall be possible, be
shown in action, or in actual use, and with regard to many of the
articles it is evident that this can be done without any difficulty and
with very little additional expense.

Open Chimney Fire-places on the most approved principles will
be fitted up as models in the different rooms, and fires will be
kept constantly burning in them during the cold season.
Ornamental as well as Economical Grates, for Open Chimney
Fire-places, will also be exhibited; as also,
Ornamental Stoves, in the form of elegant Chimney-pieces, for
halls, drawing-rooms, eating-rooms, &c.

It is likewise proposed to exhibit working models, on a reduced scale,
of that most curious and most useful machine the Steam Engine.

Of Brewer’s Boilers, with improved Fire-places.
Of Distiller’s Coppers, with improved Fire-places and improved
Condensers.
Of large Boilers for the kitchens of hospitals, and of Ships’
Coppers, with improved Fire-places.

Further it is proposed to exhibit in the repository of the Institution—

Models of Ventilators for supplying rooms and ships with fresh
air.
Models of Hot-houses, with such improvements as can be made
in their construction.
Models of Lime-kilns on various constructions.
Models of Boilers, Steam-boilers, &c., for preparing food for
cattle that are stall-fed.
Models of Cottages on various constructions.
Spinning-wheels and Looms, on various constructions, for the use
of the poor, and adapted to their circumstances, together with
such other machinery as may be useful in giving them
employment at home.
Models of all such new-invented Machines and Implements as bid
fair to be of use in Husbandry.
Models of Bridges on various constructions, together with models
of all such other machines and useful instruments as the
managers of the Institution shall deem worthy of the public
notice and proper to be publicly exhibited in the repository of
the Institution.

It is proposed that each article exhibited should be accompanied with a
detailed account or description of it, properly illustrated by correct
drawings. The name of the maker and the place of his abode will also

be mentioned in this account, together with the price at which he is
willing to furnish the article to buyers.
In order to carry into effect the second object of the Institution—
namely, TEACHING THE APPLICATION OF SCIENCE to the USEFUL PURPOSES
OF LIFE—

A lecture room will be fitted up for philosophical lectures and
experiments, and a complete LABORATORY and PHILOSOPHICAL
APPARATUS, with the necessary instruments, will be provided for
making chemical and other philosophical experiments.
In fitting up this lecture room (which will never be used for any other
purpose than for giving lectures in natural Philosophy and
Philosophical Chemistry) convenient places will be provided and
reserved for the subscribers, and care will be taken to warm and light
the room properly, and provide for a sufficient supply of fresh air, so as
to render it comfortable and salubrious.
In engaging lecturers for the Institution care will be taken by the
managers to invite none but men of the first eminence in science to
officiate in that most important and most distinguished situation; and
no subjects will ever be permitted to be discussed at these lectures but
such as are strictly scientifical, and immediately connected with that
particular branch of science publicly announced as the subject of the
lecture. The managers to be responsible for the strict observance of this
regulation.
In case there should be places to spare in the lecture room, persons not
subscribers will, on the recommendation of a subscriber, and on paying
a certain small sum to be determined by the managers, be permitted to
attend the public lectures or any one or more of them.
Among the various branches of science that will occasionally be made
the subjects of these public lectures may be reckoned the following,
viz.: These lectures will treat—

Of Heat, and its application to the various purposes of life.

Of the Combustion of Inflammable Bodies, and the relative
quantities of Heat producible by the different substances used
as fuel.
Of the Management of Fire and the Economy of Fuel.
Of the Principles of the Warmth of Clothing.
Of the Effects of Heat and of Cold, and of hot and of cold winds,
on the human body in sickness and in health.
Of the Effects of breathing vitiated and confined air.
Of the Means that may be used to render Dwelling-houses
comfortable and salubrious.
Of the Methods of procuring and preserving Ice in Summer, and
of the best principles for constructing Ice-houses.
Of the Means of preserving Food in different seasons and in
different climates.
Of the Means of cooling Liquors in hot weather, without the
assistance of ice.
Of Vegetation, and of the specific nature of those effects that are
produced by Manures, and of the Art of composing Manures
and adapting them to the different kinds of soil.
Of the nature of those changes that are produced on substances
used as food in the various processes of cookery.
Of the nature of those changes which take place in the Digestion
of Food.
Of the Chemical Principles of the process of Tanning Leather, and
of the objects that must particularly be had in view in attempts
to improve that most useful art.
Of the Chemical Principles of the art of making Soap, of the art of
Bleaching, of the art of Dyeing, and in general of all the

Mechanical Arts, as they apply to the various branches of
manufacture.

Of the Funds of the Institution.

It is proposed to raise the money necessary for defraying the expense
of forming this Institution, and also for the future expense of keeping it
up, in the following manner:
1st. By the sums subscribed by the original founders and sole
proprietors of the Institution, at fifty guineas each person, to be but
once paid.
2dly. By the sums contributed by those who shall subscribe for life, at
ten guineas each person, to be but once paid.
3dly. By the sums contributed by the annual subscribers at two
guineas per annum for each person.
4thly. By the particular donations and legacies that may be expected to
be made for the purpose of extending and improving so interesting and
so useful an Institution; and,
Lastly. By the sums that shall be received at the door from strangers
who shall visit the repository of the Institution, or who shall obtain
leave to frequent the philosophical lectures.

Privileges of the Original Subscribers or Proprietors of
the Institution.

1mo. These subscribers, who will never be called upon for any further
contributions after the sum subscribed (fifty guineas) shall have been
once paid, will be effectually secured against all future legal claims
and demands upon them on account of any debts the managers of the
Institution may contract, as a charter for the Institution will be applied
for and obtained, for the express purpose of providing for that security,
before any other step shall be taken for carrying this plan into

execution, and before any part of the money subscribed will be
demanded.
2do. Proprietors will not be deemed liable to serve, either as managers
or as visitors, against their consent; and none will be considered as
candidates for either of those offices, or will be entered on the lists as
candidates, or be proposed as such, except it be those who shall have
previously signified their willingness to serve in one of those offices in
case of their being elected.
3tio. For the still greater security of the proprietors, as well as to found
the Institution on a more solid basis, one-half of the sums subscribed
by the original subscribers and proprietors of the Institution will be
permanently vested in the public funds, or in the purchase of freehold
property, and the annual produce thereof employed in defraying the
expense of keeping up the Institution.
4to. Each original subscriber and proprietor of the Institution to be an
hereditary governor of the Institution—to have a perpetual
transferable share in all the property belonging to it—to have a voice
in the election of the managers of the Institution, as also in the election
of the Committee of Visitors—to have, moreover, two transferable
tickets of perpetual admission into the establishment, and into every
part of it, and two transferable tickets of admission to all the public
philosophical lectures and experiments.
5to. Although the shares of proprietors and all the privileges annexed
to them are hereditary, and are also transferable by sale or by
donation, yet those to whom such shares are conveyed by sale or by
donation must, in order to their being rendered capable of holding
them, have obtained the approbation and consent of the majority of the
managers for the time being. Those who shall become possessed of
these shares by inheritance will not stand in need of the consent of the
managers to be qualified to hold them, and to enjoy the rights and
privileges annexed to them.
6to. Proprietors’ tickets will admit any persons who shall be the
bearers of them.

7mo. Proprietors will have the privilege of recommending persons for
admittance to the philosophical lectures and experiments, and the
persons so recommended will be admitted in all cases where there
shall be room for their accommodation, provided that the persons so
admitted conform to the rules and regulations which will be
established by the managers for the preservation of order and decorum
within the walls of the Institution.
8vo. No more than forty per cent. of the sum subscribed by each
proprietor will be wanted immediately, and the remainder may be
furnished in three equal payments at the expiration of the three next
succeeding half-years; but it will be in the option of proprietors to pay
the whole sum of fifty guineas at once if they should prefer doing it.

Privileges of the Subscribers for Life.

Each subscriber of this class will receive one ticket for life, but not
transferable, of free admission into the Institution, and into every part
of it, together with one other ticket for life, but not transferable, of free
admission to all public philosophical lectures and experiments.

Privileges of Annual Subscribers.

Each annual subscriber will receive one ticket for one year, but not
transferable, of admission into the Institution, and into every part of it;
as also one ticket for one year, but not transferable, of admission to all
the public philosophical lectures and experiments. Subscribers of this
class will, moreover, have a right of becoming subscribers for life, on
paying at any time within the year for which they subscribe an
additional sum of eight guineas.

Privileges that are common to Subscribers of all
Denominations.

1mo. Subscribers for life and annual subscribers, as well as the
proprietors of the Institution, will be entitled to have copies or
drawings (made at their own expense, however) of any of the models

in the repository, and this even when such copies are designed for the
use of their friends, as well as when they are wanted for their own
private use; and for their better and more speedy accommodation
workshops will be prepared, and workmen provided under the
direction of the managers, for executing such work properly and at
reasonable prices. And, to prevent mistakes, all copies or drawings that
shall be made of the machines, models, and plans lodged in the
repository of the Institution will be examined by persons appointed for
that purpose, and marked with a seal or stamp of the Institution.
2do. Tradesmen and artificers employed in executing any work after
any of the models lodged in the repository will, on the
recommendation of a proprietor or of a subscriber for life, or for one
year, be allowed free access to such model as often as shall be
necessary; and any workman or artificer so recommended who shall be
willing to furnish to buyers any article exhibited in the repository that
is in his line of business, will be allowed to place a specimen of such
article of his manufacture in the repository, with his name and place of
abode attached to it, together with the price at which he can furnish it,
such specimen having been examined and approved by the managers.

Of the Government and Management of the Institution.

1mo. All the affairs of the Institution will be directed and governed by
nine managers, chosen by and from among the proprietors of the
Institution.
2do. For the greater convenience of the proprietors, and to spare them
the trouble of a general meeting, all the elections of managers, after the
first, will be made by ballot, by means of sealed lists of names sent in
by the proprietors individually to the Institution, which lists will be
opened, and the result of the election ascertained and published, by the
united committees of the managers and of the visitors for the time
being.
3tio. The first set of managers will be chosen by the first fifty or more
original subscribers, at a general meeting of them to be held for that
purpose; and of this first set of managers three will be chosen to serve

three years, three to serve two years, and three to serve one year,
reckoned from the 25th day of March, 1799.
4to. All managers, as well those of the first set as others, will be
capable of being re-elected without limitation.
5to. The elections of managers to be made annually on the 25th day of
the month of March,[13] and fourteen days previous to each election the
managers for the time being will send to each proprietor individually a
printed list containing the names of all such of the proprietors as shall
have offered or consented to be candidates for the places among the
managers that are to be filled up. On this printed list, which each
proprietor will receive, he will indicate the persons to whom he gives
his suffrage by making a mark with a pen and ink in the form of a
small cross just before the names of those persons; and, this being
done, he will seal up the list without signing it and send it to the
Institution, directed ‘To the United Committee of the Managers and of
the Visitors.’ In order that these lists may be recognised on their being
returned to the Institution, they will all be marked with the stamp of
the Institution previous to their being issued or sent to the proprietors.
And, for still further security, each proprietor will be requested to send
in his or her sealed list of names under an additional cover, signed with
his or her own name, which additional cover will be taken off, and all
the sealed lists mixed together in an urn, previous to any of them being
opened—an arrangement that will effectually prevent the vote of any
individual subscriber being known.
6to. The managers are to serve in that office without any pay or
emolument or pecuniary advantage whatever; and by their acceptance
of their office they shall be deemed solemnly to pledge themselves to
the proprietors of the Institution and to the public for the faithful
discharge of their duty as managers, and also for their strict adherence
to the fundamental principles of the government of the Institution as
established at its formation.
7mo. The managers are to take care that the property of the Institution,
as far as it shall be practicable, be insured against accidents by fire.

8vo. The managers will cause exact and detailed accounts to be kept of
all the property belonging to the Institution, as also of all receipts and
expenditures. They will also keep regular minutes of all their
proceedings, and will take care to preserve the most exact order and
the strictest economy in the management of all the affairs and concerns
of the Institution.
9mo. The managers are never, on any pretext, or in any manner
whatever, to dispose of any money or property of any kind belonging
to the Institution in premiums, as the design or object of the Institution
is NOT TO GIVE REWARDS to the authors of ingenious inventions, but to
diffuse the knowledge of such improvements as bid fair to be of general
use, and to facilitate the general introduction of them; and to excite and
assist the ingenious and the enterprising by the diffusion of science,
and by awakening a spirit of inquiry.
10mo. The ordinary meetings of the managers for the despatch of the
current business of the Institution will be held weekly—namely, on
every , at the hour of ,—and extraordinary
meetings will be held as often as shall be found necessary.
11mo. Any three or more of the managers being present at any ordinary
or at an extraordinary meeting, the others having been duly
summoned, to be a quorum.
12mo. The managers will be authorised to make all such standing
orders and regulations as they shall deem necessary to the preservation
of order and decorum in the Institution, as also such regulations
respecting the manner of transacting the business of the Institution as
they shall think proper and convenient, or that may be necessary in
order to regulate the responsibility of the managers for their acts and
deeds; all such standing orders and regulations must, however, in order
to their being valid, be approved by six at least of the managers, and
they must all be published and made known to all the proprietors.

Of the Committee of Visitors.

1mo. The Committee of Visitors will be composed of nine persons, the
first set to be elected three months after the opening of the Institution.
2do. Three persons of the nine of which this Committee will consist
will be chosen for three years, three of them to serve two years, and
three of them to serve one year, reckoned from the 25th of March,
1799.
3tio. Any three or more of the members of this Committee being
present at any meeting of the Committee, the others having been duly
summoned, to make a quorum.
4to. It will be the business of this Committee formally to inspect and
examine the Institution, and every part and detail of it, once every year
—namely, on the 25th day of the month of March—and to give a
printed account or report to the proprietors, and to the subscribers of
all denominations, of its state and condition, and of the degree and
manner in which it is found to answer the important ends for which it
was designed. This Committee will also once every year—namely, on
the 25th of the month of March—examine and audit the accounts of
the receipts and expenditures of the Institution kept by the managers or
by their orders; and the report of the Committee of Visitors on this
audit will always make the first article in their public annual reports.
5to. A person actually serving as a visitor will not be eligible as a
manager, nor can his name be put on the list of candidates for that
office till one whole year shall have elapsed after he shall have ceased
to belong to the Committee of Visitors. Those, however, who serve as
visitors will be capable of being re-elected on that Committee without
limitation.

Miscellaneous Articles.

1mo. The managers will take care to procure, and to exhibit in the
repository as early as possible, models of all such new and useful
mechanical inventions and improvements as shall, from time to time,
be made in this or in any other country.

2do. All presents to the Institution, and all new purchases and
acquisitions of every kind, will be and remain the joint property of the
proprietors of the Institution and of their heirs and assigns, and all the
surplus of the income of the Institution, over and above what shall be
found necessary for maintaining it and keeping it up, will be employed
by the managers in making additions to the local accommodation of
the Institution, or in augmenting the collection of models, or in making
additions to the philosophical apparatus, accordingly as the managers
of the Institution for the time being shall deem most useful.
3tio. In order that the proprietors of the Institution and the subscribers
may have the earliest notice of all new discoveries and useful
improvements that shall be made, from time to time, not only in this
country, but also in all the different parts of the world, the managers
will employ the proper means for obtaining, as early as possible, from
every part of the British Empire, and from all foreign countries,
authentic accounts of all such new and interesting discoveries in the
various branches of science, and in arts and manufactures, and also of
all such new and useful mechanical improvements as shall be made;
and a room will be set apart in the Institution where all such
information will be lodged, and where it will be kept for the sole and
exclusive use and inspection of the proprietors and subscribers, and
where no stranger will ever be admitted.

At a general meeting of the proprietors, held at the house of the Right
Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., K.B., in Soho Square, on the 7th day
of March, 1799, the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks in the chair, the following
list of the proprietors and original subscribers of fifty guineas each was
read:

Sir Robert Ainslie, Bart.
J. J. Angerstein, Esq.
Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K.B.
Thomas Bernard, Esq.
Scrope Bernard, Esq., M.P.
The Earl of Besborough.
Rowland Burdon, Esq., M.P.
James Burton, Esq.

Timothy Brent, Esq.
Henry Cavendish, Esq.
Rich. Clarke, Esq., Chamb. of London.
Sir John Colpoys, K.B.
John Craufurd, Esq.
The Duke of Devonshire, K.G.
Andrew Douglas, Esq.
The Lord Bishop of Durham.
The Earl of Egremont.
George Ellis, Esq., M.P.
Joseph Grote, Esq.
Sir Robert Bateson Harvey, Bart.
Sir John Cox Hippesley, Bart.
Henry Hoare, Esq.
John Spalding, Esq., M.P.
The Earl Spencer, K.G.
Sir George Staunton, Bart.
John Sullivan, Esq.
Richard Joseph Sulivan, Esq.
Lord Teignmouth.
John Thomson, Esq.
Lord Hobart.
Lord Holland.
Henry Hope, Esq.
Thomas Hope, Esq.
Lord Keith, K.B.
William Lushington, Esq., M.P.
Sir John Macpherson, Bart., M.P.
William Manning, Esq., M.P.
The Earl of Mansfield.
The Earl of Morton, K.T.
Lord Ossulston.
Thomas Palmer, Esq.
The Lord Viscount Palmerston, M.P.
Edward Parry, Esq.
Right Hon. Thomas Pelham, M.P.
John Penn, Esq.

William Morton Pitt, Esq., M.P.
Sir James Pulteney, Bart., M.P.
Sir John Buchanan Riddell, Bart.
Count Rumford.
Sir John Sinclair, Bart., M.P.
Lord Somerville.
Samuel Thornton, Esq., M.P.
Henry Thornton, Esq., M.P.
George Vansittart, Esq., M.P.
William Wilberforce, Esq., M.P.
The Earl of Winchelsea.
Hon. James Stuart Wortley, M.P.
Sir William Young, Bart., M.P.

The following Resolutions were agreed to unanimously:
I.—That before any measures are taken for carrying the plan into
execution, a petition be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would
be graciously pleased to grant a charter to the Institution.
II.—That an outline of the plan be laid before the Right Honourable
Mr. Pitt and his Grace the Duke of Portland.
III.—That for these purposes it is expedient to elect the Committee of
Managers.
IV.—That the following proprietors (who have agreed to serve in case
they shall he elected) be now elected as the first managers of the
Institution:

For three years.

The Earl Spencer.
Count Rumford.
Richard Clark, Esq.

For two years.

The Earl of Egremont.
Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.
Rich. Joseph Sulivan, Esq.

For one year.

The Earl of Morton.
The Rt. Hon. Thomas Pelham.
Thomas Bernard, Esq.

V.—That the said managers be desired to solicit a charter for the
Institution, upon principles conformable to the Proposals which have
been printed and distributed, and (as soon as the charter is obtained) to
publish the plan for the benefit of the public, in such manner as they
shall deem most expedient; and also to take preparatory measures for
opening the Institution.
That these resolutions be inserted in the public papers.
Jos. Banks, Chairman.
Sir Joseph Banks having quitted the chair,
Resolved,—That the thanks of the meeting be given to him for his
conduct in the chair.

After this meeting of the proprietors a meeting of the managers was held,
and the following resolutions taken:
At the first meeting of the Managers of the Institution, held at the house of
the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, in Soho Square, Saturday, March 9,
1799,
On a motion made by Count Rumford—

I.—Resolved, That Sir Joseph Banks be requested to take the chair,
and that he do continue to preside at all future meetings of the
managers, until a charter shall have been obtained from his Majesty for
the Institution.

II.—Resolved, That all acts and deeds of the managers, in carrying on
the business of the Institution, be transacted and done in the name of
the managers of the Institution.
III.—Resolved, That at each meeting of the managers one of the
managers present be elected by a majority of those present to act as
secretary to the managers at that meeting.
IV.—Resolved, That the minutes of the proceedings of each meeting of
the managers for the despatch of the business of the Institution, as well
as all orders, resolutions, and other acts and deeds of the managers, be
signed by the person who acts as president, and also by the person who
acts as secretary at the meeting at which such business is transacted.
V.—Resolved, That the persons present at this meeting do now
proceed to make choice of one of their number to act as secretary at
the present meeting.
VI.—Resolved, That Thomas Bernard, Esq., is duly elected to act as
secretary at the present meeting.
VII.—Resolved, That the Proposals for forming the Institution, as
published by Count Rumford, be approved and adopted by the
managers, subject, however, to such partial modifications as shall be
by them found to be necessary or useful.
VIII.—Resolved, That the Earl of Morton, the Earl Spencer, Sir Joseph
Banks, and Mr. Pelham, or any one or more of them, be requested to
lay the Proposals for forming the Institution before his Majesty and the
Royal Family, and before his Majesty’s Ministers and the Great
Officers of State.
IX.—Resolved, That the Proposals for forming the Institution be laid
before the Members of both Houses of Parliament, and also before the
members of his Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council and the
twelve Judges.
Messrs. Cadell and Davies, booksellers in the Strand, having
generously offered to make a donation to the Institution of 500 copies

of the original Proposals for forming the Institution, published by
Count Rumford:—
X.—Resolved, That the thanks of the managers be given to Messrs.
Cadell and Davies for this donation; that it be accepted; and that these
500 copies of the Proposals be distributed among such persons as the
managers may think most likely to give their assistance in forming the
Institution.

At the next meeting of managers, on March 23, Count Rumford was elected
secretary.
It was decided that ladies should be admitted as proprietors and subscribers,
and entitled to all privileges, ‘excepting only that ladies will not be called
upon to take any part in the management with the officers of the
Institution.’
And on the 30th, Mr. Bernard being secretary, the draft of the charter was
read.
On April 30 Dr. Glasse was elected honorary secretary, and Mr. Bernard
treasurer. Mr. Mellish’s house in Albemarle Street was ordered to be
bought. Count Rumford was asked to see the Rev. Mr. Farish regarding
lectures on experimental philosophy. Mr. Swan was chosen as clerk
assistant to the treasurer and secretary. Mr. Webster, a young architect
twenty-six years old, was engaged as Clerk of the Works. He had been
educated at Aberdeen, and had studied at the Royal Academy and with an
eminent architect. At this time he had also a small school for about a dozen
mechanics.
In May it was decided that the treasurer and secretary should be entitled to
assist at all the deliberations of the managers, and a committee of
expenditure was appointed.
On Wednesday, June 5, the managers first met in Albemarle Street.
In the second volume of the ‘Reports of the Society for Bettering the
Condition of the Poor,’ Mr. Bernard gives an account of the Institution ‘so
far as it may be expected to affect the poor.’ He thus gives a view of the
Institution as it was intended to be, June 1, 1799: ‘Besides having a general

view to the benefit of arts and manufactures and to the advancement of taste
and science in this country, the Institution should specifically direct itself to
the improvement of the means of industry and of domestic comfort among
the poor. In bettering the condition of the poor there is very little prospect
of these difficulties being removed until a centre of action can be fixed, to
which persons may apply for examples, for models, and for engravings
accompanied by printed instructions, without being any longer compelled
implicitly to rely on the talents, the docility, and the conscientious
moderation of the different tradesmen who may be employed to make and
sell them.
‘A convenient house was proposed for the purpose of lectures and
experiments, and for a public exhibition of all such new and useful
inventions and improvements as are applicable to the common purposes of
life, and especially those which tend to increase the conveniences and
comforts of mankind, and to promote domestic economy and useful
industry. In the priority of introduction it was proposed that regard should
be had to the degree of public utility, and particularly as they might benefit
the general mass of the people.
‘Of the subjects of the lectures there are few which appear peculiarly to
apply to the poor. Such as those on heat, on the principles of the warmth of
clothing, and on the effects of the different temperatures of the air on the
human body.
‘The models and inventions in which the poor are most immediately
concerned will be those which may promote economy in food and fuel, and
tend to correct and purify the air in cottages and workhouses, and which
may supply means and instruments of industry on a cheap and simple
construction.
‘Thus the models to be exhibited will consist of improved fire-places and
kitchens, and of flues and louvres for supplying rooms either with tepid or
fresh air.
‘There will be small models of inventions at a very cheap price, with
engravings and explanatory descriptions useful to those who are unable to
employ the persons recommended by the Institution or to examine them in
actual and constant use at the Institution.’

Mr. Bernard’s report ends thus: ‘Though the charter is not yet obtained, and
the Institution may be considered only in its infancy, the subscriptions
already exceed 8,000l.
‘It is not very easy to calculate what may be eventually the progress of the
Institution, and what its influence on the condition of the poor. If it is
followed up with an equal zeal and attention on the part of the conductors,
and it receives the support it merits from the public, its effects must be
extremely beneficial and important. For, without adverting to the general
advantage of a new species of employment and amusement being afforded
to the higher classes of life; and science and useful occupation being
brought into some degree of fashion; it must be apparent to everyone that,
without some such means, the poor can never receive all that benefit and
assistance which the efforts and co-operation of many are now directed to
procure for them; and that the improvement of the domestic comfort and
means of industry in the cottage, the promotion of health, the economy and
well-being of the inhabitants of poor-houses, hospitals, manufactories, and
other public establishments will never be effectually obtained without such
an establishment as the Institution.’
It is difficult to believe that the Royal Institution of the present day was ever
intended to resemble the picture given of it in this report.
In June the Earl of Winchester became the first president, and the King
became the patron, and he allowed the Institution to be called Royal. At the
last meeting in the month Count Rumford was authorised to carry into
effect his proposition for a repository of models, and to employ such
artisans as he might think necessary, paying according to his discretion for
their services. He was instructed to procure such instruments and utensils as
relate more immediately to the management of fire; and he was empowered
to draw 500l. to fit up the house for their reception.
On July 6 he submitted to the managers a form of advertisement to be
inserted in the public papers, in order to carry out the exhibition of models.
In September Count Rumford was requested to engage Dr. Garnett as
lecturer and scientific secretary and Editor of the Journals, with lodgings in
the house and 300l. emolument, with a prospect of a gradual increase to
500l., provided the funds of the Institution in future authorised this

additional expenditure. A committee was formed to prepare a lecture room
on the first floor for the next winter.
Mr. Webster was appointed clerk to the treasurer and secretary, as well as
Clerk of the Works, and a long report from him was read to the managers by
Count Rumford on the formation of an industrial school for mechanics at
the Institution.
A letter written by Mr. Webster to Dr. Garnett in August 1800, and another
in 1801 to a friend, give an explanation of this proposal.

Probably August 1800.
The original object of the Institution was certainly to disseminate
knowledge in the most effectual way possible; and for this purpose,
while the higher ranks of society were amused and instructed by
lecturers on science and its too much neglected applications to the
purposes of common life, it was conceived necessary to do somewhat
in order to enlighten the minds of that class which had not enjoyed the
advantages of a liberal education, and yet whose improvement was
necessarily connected with the progress of the useful arts.
This was always considered as an object of so much importance by
Count Rumford, who has certainly had the greatest share in
establishing the Institution, that he repeatedly declared to me when I
first knew him that it was his intention to do everything in his power to
establish a school for science under the auspices of the Institution and
particularly calculated for working mechanics, a class of men whose
deficiency in knowledge proves one of the greatest drawbacks to the
progress of art. It was through the prospect of being employed in this
way, which would have been as agreeable to my habits of thinking as
useful to my interest, that I was induced to give up the school which I
then kept and the other business in which I was engaged, and to accept
of a situation and salary in the Institution by no means equivalent to
what I should have considered myself as entitled to under other
circumstances.

Later Mr. Webster wrote to a friend:

You have heard, no doubt, that I was employed as draftsman to the
Royal Institution at its first formation, and was besides engaged by
Count Rumford to take the management of a school for mechanics
which he then proposed to establish. In order to overcome the scruples
of some of the managers of the Institution on this subject, as well as to
give a specimen of my abilities for conducting such an establishment, I
addressed a paper to Count Rumford in August 1799, in which I gave
him my opinion of the kind of school which would prove most useful
to the public, and also entered into a detail of the plan which I
proposed to follow. This paper, which the Count read at the meeting of
the managers, was highly approved of, and I had then every reason to
expect that something would be done which would be creditable to the
Institution and useful to myself. I was induced in consequence to give
up the school which I then had, and which promised to answer pretty
well. But, after remaining some time in suspense, I found some reason
to be apprehensive that those who are at the head of an Institution
which professes to be a grand and national establishment were not
altogether possessed of that liberality of sentiment and knowledge of
the subject necessary for carrying into effect plans which can only be
accomplished by those whose industry has made them acquainted with
the arts and sciences taught. In short, I saw but little prospect of its
being done in the way I wished, and I had no desire to engage in it
otherwise. I am not certain that the plan has been entirely abandoned,
but I think it is not likely to take place.

In 1837 Webster gave the following account of the intention to form an
industrial school at the Institution:

Whilst employed as an architect, having occasion to direct various
workmen, I had observed their frequent inability to do what was
required from them through their deficient education, and that it was
no easy matter to find those who could understand either drawings or
directions; one had also frequently to contend with a species of
perverseness and conceit often the result of ignorance. In attempting
our improvements in fire-places, &c., I felt this the more as this kind
of work demanded a superior class of artificers. Knowing from
previous experience what it was possible to effect in their

improvement, I conceived the idea of giving to mechanics for this
purpose a species of scientific education suited to their condition, and I
believe I was the first person in this country who took active steps for
effecting so desirable an object. I was not unacquainted with the
political feelings of that time, but I did not think a little learning was a
dangerous thing if judiciously bestowed, although without due caution
it might be capable of doing more harm than good. My idea was to
make good mechanics, not to force them like hot-bed plants out of the
sphere in which they are so useful.
I proposed, then, to found a school for mechanics in the house of the
Royal Institution, in which they should be taught such principles of
science as would be useful in their several occupations, which I
considered would in a great degree promote the ‘application of science
to the common purposes of life.’ In the house of the Institution itself
the men would be under the eye of the higher classes, and anything
wrong would easily be put a stop to. With this view I wrote a long
letter to Count Rumford, detailing my views and plans. He was
delighted with them, and he read my letter to the board of managers;
the idea was favourably received, and my letter was inserted upon the
Minutes of the Institution, where of course it may be seen (Managers’
Minutes, Sept. 14, 1799). Some difficulties were, however, suggested.
It was thought that Sir Joseph Banks, then president, would object, and
I was requested to take the minute book to him and do what I could to
win him over. I accordingly saw Sir Joseph, and, by explaining to him
how much the arts would gain by intelligent operatives, I overcame a
few political scruples which he had. At last all objections were
silenced, and everyone seemed to rejoice in the prospect that opened of
adding to the Royal Institution a decided proof of liberal feeling. The
general idea and intention with respect to this school were published in
the Journals of the Institution;[14] and the news reached every corner of
the kingdom that the managers of the Royal Institution of Great
Britain, among whom were persons of the highest rank, instead of
being adverse to the diffusion of knowledge, had actually formed a
school for the instruction of mechanical classes.
It is saying little to assert that the Institution acquired some popularity
by this measure. It gained much not only here but all over Europe; and

in June 1801 Professor Pictet, of Geneva, the well-known and learned
editor of the ‘Bibliothèque Universelle,’ in his published account of a
tour which he made through England at this time, speaks of it as one of
the most important branches of the Institution. It is unnecessary to
enter into a detailed account of my plan, which was, in fact, intended
as an experiment. It was generally to educate a number of mechanics
sent by the proprietors of the Institution. At first all were to learn the
same elementary principles, but afterwards they were to branch off
according to their several trades. My first intention was to instruct
bricklayers, joiners, tinmen, and ironplate workers, as those were the
trades most connected with our improvements at this time. In a large
room on the ground floor we built up for practising the men chimneys
and fire-places of all kinds in a slight manner, pulled them down, and
built up others. We fitted up improved fire-places within, models of
old-fashioned cottage chimneys, also boilers of various kinds, and
showed how smoky chimneys might be cured, &c.; models of various
culinary vessels were made from ideas of Count Rumford, and were
put in the model room for the inspection of the public. Of the workmen
to be instructed some were sent by Lord Winchelsea, by Sir Thomas
Barnard, Lady Palmerston, &c., and when they were thought to be
sufficiently instructed they returned to the part of the country from
which they had come, and practised what they had learned and taught
others. Thus by degrees a laudable zeal was created amongst various
classes of society, even the highest, for acquiring useful knowledge
and diffusing it by their several exertions. Never was there a period
when this was felt in a stronger degree, and the establishment of the
Royal Institution ought to be considered as the commencement of a
new era in the history of science in this country. I should not here
forget to mention the then existing Society for Bettering the Condition
of the Poor, composed of men of the highest rank, such as the Bishop
of Durham, &c.; and to this Society, which met in the house of the
Royal Institution (December 23, 1799), I was made assistant secretary
for the purpose of letting me the better into their views.
It is impossible to state the whole of the good that has proceeded from
these liberal endeavours to improve society, and the country owes
more than is generally known to the benevolent spirit thus excited.

After September 14 Count Rumford was absent until February 3. During
this time six meetings only of the managers were held, one in October,
when Sir John Hippesley brought at great length the question of the arms of
the Institution before the managers. Another meeting was on December 23,
when the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor were granted a
room for the committee meetings. The prospectus and charter were ordered
to be printed in octavo, and Dr. Garnett laid before the managers the plan of
his lectures for the following year.
Thus, then, in 1799 the Rumford Institution began in the house of Sir
Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, and in the first year of its
life it became the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. It had its origin in
the work which Count Rumford did for the poor in Munich, and its primary
objects were models, workshops, and useful knowledge to benefit the poor;
lectures, researches, and scientific experiments to amuse and interest the
rich and to advance science were comparatively the secondary intentions of
its founder.
In 1800 a new and very long prospectus was written by Count Rumford. It
was printed with the charter, bye-laws, and names of the proprietors and
subscribers, and published on January 23. It again said, ‘the two chief
purposes of the Institution were the speedy and general diffusion of the
knowledge of all new and useful improvements, in whatever quarter of the
world they may originate; the application of scientific discoveries to the
improvement of arts and manufactures in this country, and to the increase of
domestic comfort and convenience.’ There is a remarkable addition in May
of two paragraphs to the edition in quarto of this publication. They read as
if some one had pointed out the absence of all mention of attraction for the
rich. These words were added: ‘But, in estimating the probable usefulness
of this Institution, we must not forget the public advantages that will be
derived from the general diffusion of a spirit of experimental investigation
and improvement among the higher ranks of society. When the rich shall
take pleasure in contemplating and encouraging such mechanical
improvements as are really useful, good taste, with its inseparable
companion good morals, will revive; rational economy will become
fashionable; industry and ingenuity will be honoured and rewarded; and the
pursuits of all the various classes of society will then tend to promote the
public prosperity.’

On the 13th of January Sir J. Hippesley read to the managers a letter
proposed to be sent to every proprietor and subscriber. It stated that the
charter had been approved, and would be sealed the next seal day; that
temporary accommodation for lectures was completed; and that Mr.
Professor Garnett would lecture early in February; that the subscribers’
rooms, containing the periodical scientific publications, foreign and
domestic, would be opened at the same time. All subscribers were requested
to pay their subscriptions immediately to Professor Garnett, or to Mr.
Webster, the clerk of the Institution, or to one of the six bankers of the
Institution.
At the end of the month Mr. Webster was ordered to prepare plans for a new
lecture room. When an old man he thus spoke of his work: ‘After nearly
forty years the theatre of the Royal Institution is pronounced to be the most
perfect room of the kind in the kingdom for possessing the properties of
allowing the lecturer to be well heard and seen by the audience, and for
affording them easy entrance and exit, &c. I have never “puffed” myself
respecting it, as is very common in similar cases, and hence, probably, my
name is scarcely known as connected with it. But I may now say, “that it
has been stated by Faraday, in his late examination before a committee of
the House of Commons, to be ‘almost perfect as a lecture room,’ and that
‘although architects are continually measuring and drawing it to copy from,
and many other rooms have been built in imitation of it in which he has
tried his voice, yet none of them proved equal to that in question.’”
‘After my designs were quite finished, and after it was resolved by the
Institution that they should be carried into execution by me, Mr. Saunders,
then architect of the British Museum, offered his assistance should any
difficulties arise. I willingly accepted his offer, as his name would be some
sanction and security in a case where I knew I had enemies as well as
friends, and I took care to show him everything I did in the construction of
the building; but the whole of the working drawings, even the details of the
mouldings, &c., were made by my own hand. The estimate and contract
were made by me and not by Saunders, and every person employed was
under my immediate direction. My designs were not in the smallest degree
altered by him.

‘Soon after my designs were made they were taken away by one of the
managers (whose name I shall not mention at present) and put into the
hands of Mr. Spiller, an architect, in order that he might make another set of
designs, thereby giving him the advantage of my ideas. This was
accordingly done. His lecture room was upon the second story and mine
was upon the first. His was covered by a lofty dome highly enriched; my
ceiling was flat. His estimate was 10,000l.; mine was 5,000l. His would
take two years to execute; mine was to be finished in six months. I shall
pass over the unpleasant circumstances to which this affair gave rise, my
resigning my situation in the Institution, being requested by the managers to
retain it, &c., and shall only say both the sets of designs were submitted to
the members of the Institution at their annual meeting, and mine were
adopted, and it was resolved that they should be executed under my
superintendence. Mr. Spiller claimed and got, I believe, 150l. I received
nothing as an architect, because I was an officer of the Institution at a very
small salary, and Count Rumford had in the beginning caused a strange
regulation to be made and printed “that no one should ever be rewarded by
the Institution for any services which he might perform.”’
In another note he says:
‘In designing the lecture room of an institution so peculiar (unique indeed at
that time) my object was to adapt it for different ranks in society, for any
attempt to destroy all distinctions must be absurd. I constructed a gallery
intended for those who either wished to be less observed, or who, for
obvious reasons, would not like to sit down by their employers. It was also
to receive such ingenious mechanics as had gained a title to be there. To this
gallery a separate stone staircase led from the street. The whole of this was
built.’[15]
On January 15 Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks from Broadlands:

I certainly am in much better health than I was when I came here,
which I attribute as much to my having left off taking medicines as to
the salubrious air of the country. I think that I shall stay here about a
fortnight longer, and shall then return to Brompton, and shall be at the
disposal of the managers of the Institution for the remainder of the
winter. I am very glad indeed that you like Webster. I am much

deceived if he does not turn out to be a very useful acquisition. I hope
Dr. Garnett will do well, but I must own that I am not as prepossessed
in his favour as I am in favour of Webster.
If more active and more useful men could be found to serve as
managers in lieu of two or three of ours who seldom or never attend, I
think it would be advisable to accept their resignation. One has
privately offered me to resign whenever I may wish it, and I should
think it would not be difficult to persuade two others to follow the
example. But we will talk this matter over when we meet.
I have been very busy here for the last fortnight putting up a public
kitchen in the town of Romsey. It is now nearly finished, and begins to
attract public curiosity. As it contains a complete well-arranged kitchen
for a private family as well as cottage fire-places, German stoves, nests
of small ovens, large soup boilers, &c., it almost deserves the name of
a public repository, and I have no doubt but it will be useful as such. If
Webster were here for a few days, he might take drawings of the whole
for the use of the Royal Institution.

A week after he wrote: ‘I am expecting the arrival of Webster every
moment. I am glad you have sent him here, for the drawings he will make
of the works that have been executed in the Romsey public kitchen will
save me much trouble (for I must have made them), and his seeing the
kitchen here will enable him to be of great use to me in directing the works
in Albemarle Street.’
On February 3 Count Rumford was again present. Doubtless the following
passage in the Managers’ Minutes refers to him: ‘The unfortunate illness
and long confinement of one of the managers, whose zeal had been so
conspicuous in the formation and success of the Institution, was another
obstacle to the commencement of many interesting arrangements, which he
necessarily considered as essential to superintend in person.’
The same day Sir John Hippesley made a long report to the managers to be
laid before the proprietors of the Institution on the 10th.
He alluded to a proposal for private boxes in the new theatre, and spoke of
accommodating nearly 1,000 persons, and said that the floor under the

theatre was for a repository, and that the sunk floor of the new building was
designed for a complete laboratory, ‘which unfortunately this great
metropolis of the British Empire has hitherto failed to produce, but which is
an essential appendix to the Royal Institution.’
It was proposed to raise 5,000l. by transferable debentures, and the sum
subscribed during the meeting was 5,200l.
At the next meeting a building committee, consisting of Earl Morton, Count
Rumford, and Sir J. Hippesley, was appointed. The following week this was
made to include all the managers.
In this month Count Rumford went to live in the house, and the managers
resolved ‘that as long as he did so he should be required to superintend all
the works going on in the house, and to see that the servants in the house
and the different workmen employed discharge their various duties with
diligence and due decorum, and that the proprietors, subscribers, and others
who visit the Institution are received with civility and treated with proper
respect and attention.’
Sir Joseph Banks drew up the bye-laws, and Count Rumford was afterwards
asked, agreeably to a provision in the draft bye-laws, to prepare internal
regulations for conducting the business of the Institution. An under-librarian
and clerk to the managers was also appointed.
The meeting of managers on March 31 was the starting point of the Journal
of the Institution. The publication was left to the superintendence of
Rumford.
A printing press was ordered to be bought as soon as possible, and a
scientific committee of council was formed. This was to be a standing
committee ‘to examine the syllabuses of the professor of natural philosophy
and chemistry, to the end that no false scientific doctrine might be taught at
the Institution, and to superintend all the new philosophical experiments
that might be made in the house of the Institution, and, when made, to cause
to be drawn up an account of the same for the managers and for the Royal
Society of London.’
This committee consisted of Cavendish, Maskelyne, Blagden, Rennell,
Planta, Gray, Vince, Farish, and Hatchett.

The managers also decided that fourteen committees should be appointed
for the purpose of specific investigation and improvement. Persons in no
way connected with the Institution might be appointed. The chairman and
deputy chairman were to be nominated by the managers. The meetings were
to be held in the house, and the results were to be published in the Journals.
The subjects were, 1, making bread; 2, soup; 3, cottages; 4, stoves; 5,
kitchen fire-places and utensils; 6, household furniture; 7, food for cattle; 8,
cooking in ships and distilling fresh water at sea; 9, lime-kilns; 10, fire-balls
and combustible cakes; 11, mortar and cements; 12, composition houses;
13, useful machines of all descriptions; 14, iron founding and working and
refining iron and steel.
Dr. R. J. Thornton offering to lecture on botany as connected with
agriculture, it was resolved that the cultivation of natural history and
agriculture was not included in the original plan of the Royal Institution,
and that it was not expedient to accept the offer.
On April 5 the first number of the ‘Journal of the Royal Institution of Great
Britain’ was published. It contains, 1. The proceedings of the managers of
March 31 and the report to the proprietors made on February 10. 2. An
advertisement respecting the publication of the Journal, ‘that threepence
would be the price of a number of eight pages, and sixpence if sixteen
pages; that no stated period could then be fixed, but it is expected a number
would appear as often at least as once every fortnight.’ 3. A short account of
the works now carrying on at the house of the Institution. Mention is made
of the theatre, and under it a spacious airy semicircular repository for
receiving various useful machines which will be exhibited as models for
imitation. Immediately under the repository will be constructed a lofty and
capacious laboratory for chemical experiments. The fire-places, the kitchen,
the boilers, the ovens, the complete roaster, steamers, and other articles of
kitchen furniture on new principles were either prepared or preparing for
exhibition. An account is given of the number of the proprietors, 248; life
subscribers, 259; annual subscribers, 297; ladies, annual, 97; and a notice of
the philosophical lectures for the following week.
The second number of the Journal did not appear for nearly fourteen
months.

In May Mr. Savage was engaged as printer; and ‘a good cook for the
improvement of culinary advancement, one object, and not the least
important, for the Royal Institution.’ A resolution was passed that as Count
Rumford had, at the request of the managers, undertaken to superintend the
house, no new works should be undertaken in it, nor any alterations made in
it, nor any furniture ordered for it, or brought into it, or placed or displaced
in it unless it be with his knowledge, and by his orders; and he was
requested, whilst he continued to lodge in the house, to superintend all the
servants, to preserve order and decorum, and to control the expenses of
housekeeping. It is most probable that this resolution was intended to
control Dr. Garnett. A printing-press was bought. Sir John Hippesley was
elected treasurer.
Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

Royal Institution, May 29, 1800.
I am very sorry to find, on making inquiry of Doctor Garnett, that your
information was accurate respecting his having ascribed the late
discoveries of our friend Volta to the French. Had I been apprised of
his intention to mention this discovery at his lectures, I should
certainly have taken care that he should have mentioned it in a proper
manner; but I knew nothing of the matter until it was too late to
prevent the mistake. I have, however, insisted on its being rectified as
far as it is possible in some future lecture, and I am promised that it
will be done. I know not from whom the Doctor procured his
information respecting his discovery, but I learnt by accident late last
evening that he borrowed the apparatus with which he exhibited the
experiments at the lecture from Mr. Howard. I dined out and did not
come home till his lecture was nearly over.

The next day Rumford wrote again:

Royal Institution, May 30, 1800.
Doctor Garnett is perfectly ready to make the following public
declaration this evening at his lecture at the Institution, or he will say
anything else on the subject in question which you may think will be

more proper for him to say to atone for his mistake and to make
amends to Professor Volta:
‘Having by mistake on Wednesday, in the course of my public lecture,
ascribed to the French philosophers a new and interesting discovery
relative to galvanism, which, on inquiry, I find belongs to Professor
Volta, of Milan, I feel it to be my duty to state this fact in a public
manner, in order that Professor Volta may not be deprived in any
degree of the honour of a discovery which so justly belongs to him and
to him alone. The first news of this discovery, which arrived in this
country in the beginning of last month, was communicated in a letter
from Professor Volta to the President of the Royal Society, and it was
in consequence of the information contained in that letter that Dr.
Carlisle, Mr. Nicholson, Mr. Howard, and others have been enabled to
construct the necessary apparatus, and to repeat the ingenious
Professor’s very interesting experiments.’
Any alterations you may wish in the above shall be made, if you will
point them out.

In June Count Rumford reported that, in consequence of the request of the
managers, he had transmitted through the envoy of the United States of
North America to each of the philosophical societies, academies,
universities, &c., in that country a copy of the prospectus, charter,
ordinances, bye-laws, and regulations of the Royal Institution of Great
Britain.
Copies were sent to different public institutions abroad.
Dr. Garnett finished his lectures on June 10. He then wrote to the managers
to say that he proposed to go into the country, but would at all times be
ready to obey the summons of the managers if his attendance should be
wanted before the commencement of the lectures.
On June 12, 1800, Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks:

Royal Institution, Thursday Morning, 6 o’clock.

I hope you can make it convenient to come and give me a lift this
morning at our meeting, for I want you very much. Our treasurer[16]
has not qualified, and he does not seem to be in any hurry to do so. I
mentioned to him at our last meeting the embarrassments we were
under for the want of a treasurer to furnish money to the new
Committee of Expenditure; but he proposed, as an expedient, that I
should draw on Ransom and Co., who he said would not refuse my
draft. I see no reason why business should be done in this irregular
way, when it may and ought to be done in the manner specially and
clearly pointed out in our bye-laws. Our lectures are over for this
season, and Garnett is going into the country to stay there till January
next. I see no good reason why we should keep up our present
numerous and expensive establishment of servants, especially as a
great part of the house is coming down, and we shall soon have no
place in the house to lodge them.
All we can possibly want till January next are—

Our clerk of the works Webster
Our clerk Savage
Our messenger, who may act ⎱
as porter and messenger ⎰
And one housemaid Blanchett

This arrangement will enable us to discharge—

Dr. Garnett’s assistant Sadler
The porter Wharton
The housekeeper Mrs. Wharton
And one housemaid

If this scheme should meet with your approbation, I beg that you
would move the necessary resolutions to-day, and there will be more
than one difficulty removed. As soon as this disagreeable business
shall be completed, and everything in the house belonging to the
Institution delivered over to the care of those persons who are to take
and have the charge of them, my mind will be at rest, and I can go to

Harrogate and give these waters a fair trial, which, as things are now
circumstanced, would be impossible.

The expensive establishment was at once ordered to be reduced, and the
assistant to the Professor was discharged.
The agreement for building the new premises was this month sealed and
signed, the treasurer qualified, and the weekly meetings of managers ceased
to be held.
As soon as the basement of the new building was finished, it must have
been apparent that it was much too dark and low for a laboratory, and this
part of the intended plan was given up.
Many years afterwards Mr. Webster said of the present laboratory: ‘I may
perhaps just mention that the chemical laboratory in which so many
valuable discoveries have been made was not only designed and built by
me, but owes to me its very existence, for, though I inserted it in my plans,
the managers did not at first consider it necessary.’
In August Mr. Webster thus wrote to Count Rumford, who was then at
Harrogate:

I have deferred writing to you so long in expectation of being able to
send you drawings of the proposed mode of building the laboratory.
Mr. Hatchett has been several times at the Institution and has given his
opinion respecting it, from which the drawings have been made out.
There was a meeting of managers on Monday last, at which Mr.
Saunders laid before them the drawings and an estimate of several
works which he proposed to do, and which were not included in the
original contract. These are the engine and reservoir on the staircase,
the removal of the water-closet from the place where it now stands to
the roof of the laboratory; taking down the present stack of chimneys
from the great kitchen, together with the breast-work in the kitchen
which contains the range, roasters, and oven, which he considers
necessary in order to fit up a strong closet in the managers’ room;
together with a small addition to the fitting up of the laboratory itself,
which it is proposed to do in a more complete and more expensive way
than was provided for by the contract. All these additions, Mr.

Saunders informs me, the managers approved of, and he is accordingly
preparing the necessary agreements with Mr. Hancock for executing
them.
Everything in the new building goes on briskly and well. We have got
as high as the lecture-room floor, and I expect in a month we shall be
ready for the roof. No deviation whatever has been made from the
plans, and all the works hitherto done have been executed to the
satisfaction of Mr. Saunders.
I wished to send you the drawings of the laboratory, but they not being
quite ready, I shall take the next opportunity.

In September he wrote again:

The timbers of the roof are on, and we are beginning to board it for
slating. The brickwork of the laboratory is also nearly completed.
Hitherto I have found employment for Mr. Wincks, the model-maker;
when I had nothing else for him to do he has been at work upon the
model of the pile engine, which will now be finished in a day or two;
and, as I have not any further occasion for him to assist me, I shall be
happy if you will write whether there is anything he might be
employed upon until you come to town.

In another letter he says:

The buildings are advancing rapidly, and I hope the lecture room at
least will be ready by the 1st of January. The laboratory will, I think,
be found very convenient, being airy and well lighted.

During his stay at Harrogate Rumford made careful experiments on himself
with regard to the warm bath. These are given in his thirteenth essay, on the
‘Salubrity of Warm Bathing.’ He found that a daily bath at ninety-six
degrees or ninety-seven for half-an-hour two hours before dinner for five
weeks increased the appetite, the digestion, the spirits, the strength, and the
insensibility to cold.
On leaving Harrogate he went to Scotland.

A visit of ceremony was paid him by the magistrates of Edinburgh; he was
consulted respecting the abolition of mendicity, and the measures which he
recommended were speedily executed with complete success.
He was made an honorary member of the Royal Society and of the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and he received a gold snuff-box as a
compliment for his assistance in reforming the culinary establishment of
Heriot’s Hospital, and was elected a member of the Society of Scotland for
Bettering the Condition of the Poor. His letters of thanks for these last
honours are preserved.
To the Lord Provost of Edinburgh he wrote:

I shall always remember with pleasure, and with the most sincere
gratitude, the kind and flattering attentions I received in Edinburgh
during my stay there. The public honours that were conferred on me by
the corporation of the city and by the University were highly gratifying
to me; but nothing affected me so deeply as the deference which was
paid to my opinions and advice on subjects of public utility by men in
the highest stations and of the most respectable character and abilities,
and the liberality, zeal, and perseverance with which the measures I
took the liberty to recommend were adopted and pursued.
May the important undertaking in which the inhabitants of Edinburgh
are now engaged—the prevention of that most disgusting and
disgraceful of public evils, mendicity—and the formation of a
permanent establishment for the instruction and employment of the
poor be completely successful, and may it serve as a model for
imitation to every city and every town in Great Britain and Ireland.

To the Rev. George Baird, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, he
wrote from the Royal Institution, March 21, 1801, thanking him for the
honour which the Society in Scotland for Bettering the Condition and
Improving the Comfort of the Poor had conferred on him by electing him a
member.
During the autumn Webster wrote to Dr. Garnett to ask if he would help him
to become his assistant. He wished this place in order to make himself a
better teacher of operatives, and to have employment when the additional

buildings were finished. Dr. Garnett, in his reply, says ‘an operator’s time
ought to be dedicated to natural philosophy.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘the
School of Mechanics might perhaps be carried on by the operator.’ In
Webster’s answer to Dr. Garnett the position of the School of Design at the
end of September 1800 is seen.

When I mentioned that teaching mechanics might probably form a part
of my employment I did not speak from any certain knowledge on the
subject, but merely because such a thing had once been in agitation. I
have now very little reason for supposing that such a plan will be at all
put in practice, but if ever it should, no doubt the managers will take
care that it shall not prove any inconvenience to you. I could not
myself engage in it upon any other conditions. Setting that aside,
therefore, as extremely uncertain if not improbable....

At the end of the year hot-water pipes were ordered for warming the
theatre.
The chief events in the history of the Institution during the year 1800 may
be thus summed up: The new theatre was built; large committees for
scientific investigation were formed; and the first number of the Journal
was published. No advance was made in the formation of a repository for
models; or in the foundation of a school of design. The lectures of Dr.
Garnett were successful, but he was refused permission to practise his
profession as a physician and to bring his children to live at the Institution.
Count Rumford himself ordered and superintended everything in the house.
Early the next year there was a visible rupture between him and Dr. Garnett
regarding the prospectus of the lectures for the season, and in June 1801 Dr.
Garnett resigned.
The causes of this will be best seen by a short sketch of his life.
Dr. Thomas Garnett was born in 1766 in Westmoreland. He was apprenticed
to a medical man in the country and graduated as a physician in Edinburgh
in 1788. Dr. Brown at that time was teaching his new theory of medicine,
and Dr. Garnett became a strong Brunonian. In an inaugural essay on
Health, which was published ultimately, he showed with great clearness

how the doctrine of accumulated and exhausted excitability could be
applied to explain the movements in the body in health and disease.
He left Edinburgh to study medicine in London, and in 1790 he went to
Bradford to practise his profession; there he gave some private lessons in
natural philosophy and chemistry.
In 1791, when twenty-five, he thought he should succeed better by
practising at Knaresborough in the winter and at Harrogate in the summer.
He analysed the waters at Harrogate, and in 1794 he built a house there and
determined to practise only at Harrogate. An engagement to be married
made him form a new plan for success. He persuaded his intended wife
reluctantly to agree to emigrate to America after their marriage, which took
place in the following year. Then he sold his house in Harrogate and
purchased apparatus for lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry. On
their way to America they went to Liverpool. There, whilst waiting for a
ship, he was persuaded to give a course of lectures. This was successful,
and he was invited to give the same course on chemistry and experimental
philosophy at Manchester. He was still more successful, and invitations
came to him from Warrington, Lancaster, Birmingham, and Dublin. He did
not give up his intention of emigrating until he was offered the
professorship in Anderson’s Institution at Glasgow. His wife had borne him
a daughter, and she earnestly urged him to settle in Glasgow.
In November 1796, when thirty, he published the ‘Outlines of a Course of
Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy.’ His subjects were the
properties of matter, astronomy, electricity, magnetism, pneumatics,
hydrostatics and hydraulics, optics and mechanics.
When the session at Glasgow was over he went to Liverpool to repeat his
course of lectures. In the autumn he returned to Glasgow and made known
his intention of practising as a physician there. Fortune continued to favour
him; his reputation increased and he soon had the best prospect of the
leading practice in Glasgow.
In 1797, when thirty-one, he published his ‘Outlines of a Course of
Lectures on Chemistry.’ His twenty-seventh lecture was on Agriculture; his
twenty-eighth on Bleaching; his twenty-ninth on Dyeing and on Calico
Printing; and his last on the Analysis of Mineral Waters.

On Christmas Day, 1798, his wife died in childbirth, and on New Year’s
Day he wrote this feeling letter:

Oh! my dear cousin, little did I expect that I should begin the new year
with telling you that I am now deprived of all earthly comforts; yes,
the dear companion of my studies, the friend of my heart, the partner
of my bosom, is now a piece of cold clay. The senseless earth is closed
on that form which was so lately animated by every virtue, and whose
only wish was to make me happy.
Is there anything which can now afford me any consolation? Yes, she
is not lost, but gone before; but still it is hard to have all our schemes
of happiness wrecked when our bark was within sight of port. When
we were promising ourselves more than common felicity it struck
upon a rock; my only treasure went to the bottom, and I am cast ashore
friendless and deprived of every comfort. My poor dead love had been
as well as usual during the two or three last months, and even on the
dreadful evening (Christmas Eve) she spoke with pleasure of the
approaching event. My spirits were elevated to so uncommon a pitch
by the birth of a lovely daughter, that they were by no means prepared
for the succeeding scene; and they have been so overwhelmed that I
sometimes hope it may be a dream out of which I wish to awake. The
little infant is well, and I have called it Catherine, a name which must
ever be dear to me, and which I wish to be able to apply to some object
whom I love; for, though it caused the death of my hopes, it is dear to
me as being the last precious relic of her whom everybody, who knew
her, esteemed, and I loved. I must now bid adieu to every comfort and
live only for the sweet babes. Oh! ’tis hard, very hard!
Thomas Garnett.

In the summer of 1799 Count Rumford wrote to Dr. Garnett, to whom he
was then an entire stranger, for information regarding the nature and
economy of Anderson’s Institution and the plan of the lectures given there.
This led finally to the proposal that Dr. Garnett should become the first
lecturer at Rumford’s new Institution in London.

On October 15 Dr. Garnett informed a special meeting of the managers of
Anderson’s Institution of his wish to resign his situation in order to go to
London. When Dr. Garnett arrived, December 23, the managers of the
Royal Institution resolved that he should be styled Professor of Natural
Philosophy and Chemistry to the Royal Institution. He sent to the board a
letter from which a view of the earliest lectures at the Institution can be
obtained.

PROFESSOR GARNETT TO THE MANAGERS.
December 23, 1799.
To the Managers of the Royal Institution.—Count Rumford
requested me to arrange and put on paper my ideas concerning the plan
and economy of the Royal Institution for the perusal of the managers.
On looking over the prospectus, however, I find the plan so well
digested that I cannot make any improvement or even advantageous
alteration. I shall therefore confine myself in the following
observations to what I conceive to belong more particularly to my
department—I mean the arrangement of the lectures—and shall
propose a plan which, from experience, I think most likely to be
useful; but I propose it with the utmost deference to the opinions of the
managers, and shall be ready to make any alterations which they may
think proper to point out.
Our object ought undoubtedly to be both amusement and instruction.
We shall have two classes of auditors, the one consisting of those who
will come chiefly for amusement or because it may be fashionable.
These it is our business to amuse, while at the same time I hope we
shall be able to interest them in the subjects, and communicate
considerable knowledge without any trouble to themselves.
For these I would propose a popular course of experimental
philosophy, in which all abstract reasoning shall be avoided, the most
entertaining and interesting experiments introduced, and the whole
calculated to afford pleasure and instruction to those who have not had
an opportunity of examining these subjects and to refresh the memory
of those who have.

On the supposition that the lectures of the Institution should open the
first week in February, if we appropriate one evening a week to it, we
can comprise this course in eighteen or twenty lectures, each lecture to
continue only an hour, that the attention may not be fatigued.
A course of lectures on chemistry, popular and amusing, at the same
time sufficiently scientific, might be given twice a week. This course
would contain the elements of chemistry and the application of this
science to the arts and manufactures, and would be illustrated by
interesting and pleasing experiments.
For the sake of the second class of auditors, which would not at first be
the most numerous, but which would continually increase in number,
even though the auditors of the other course should diminish—I mean
those attached to scientific pursuits—I would propose a full and
scientific course of experimental philosophy on the plan generally
adopted in universities. In this course particular attention should be
paid to mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, and pneumatics, which are
the most useful branches of mechanical philosophy. The mathematical
demonstration of the propositions would first be given, next the
experimental proof, and lastly the application of each to the
mechanical and chemical arts.
In this way those who could follow the mathematical demonstration
would see the coincidence between theory and experiment, and those
who could not would be satisfied with the experimental proof.
As an instance we may take one proposition.
The momentum or force of a moving body is proportioned to the
quantity of matter multiplied by its velocity; this will first be
demonstrated mathematically, then experimentally, and afterwards
applied to the explanation of mechanical powers in machinery,
projectiles, &c., illustrated by familiar examples and calculations.
If we suppose that five mornings in the week should be devoted to this
course, we shall be enabled to go through one hundred lectures before
the conclusion of the session.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that in this course opportunity will
be taken to show working models of machinery and chemical
processes in their proper places.
This would be the most useful course, and, as was before observed, the
numbers who attend it would gradually increase. At least this was the
case at Glasgow. A morning hour would probably be best for this
course.
My apparatus is elegant and good. It was made for me by the late Mr.
Adams. What the Institution will chiefly want will be of the
supplementary kind, and will not, I apprehend, cost more than 150l. or
200l., supposing we purchase the most complete and elegant
instruments, which I would strongly advise. My own apparatus shall
be at the service of the Institution while I continue among you, which I
hope will be while I live, and it is my intention eventually to bequeath
it to the Institution. As it will be necessary to come to an arrangement
as speedily as possible, Mr. Webster and myself, after having carefully
surveyed the house, are of opinion that the apparatus should be placed
in cases with glass doors, and that the best situation for it would be
round the large room[17] on the same floor with the lecture room, and
what could not conveniently be placed there, either on account of their
bulk or inelegant appearance, might be put in the small room[18]
adjoining to it. This would render this room very interesting to
strangers, and, even considering it as a lounging room, it would be
much better to have an elegant apparatus to look at than bare walls. It
would likewise be much the most convenient as an apparatus and
model room with respect to its vicinity to the lecture room—a
circumstance of no small importance.
With respect to a lounging room, in which persons might meet before
the lecture, or to which they could retire during the lecture, I assume
with submission that such a place should not on any account be
allowed. Wherever I have had accidentally such a convenient room in
the vicinity of a lecture room I have been obliged to lock it up;
otherwise the disturbance to the company by persons coming in and
going out is intolerable. The lectures will always begin at a certain
hour to a minute. If any find themselves a few minutes too soon, they

will find an elegant lecture room, well warmed. This will prevent their
coming into the room in a body and disturbing the audience and the
lecturer after the lecture is begun.
That matters might be put in a proper train it would, I think, be best to
agree immediately upon the arrangement of the house, and to give Mr.
Webster and myself, with one or more of the managers, the power of
seeing the arrangement executed.
I am, with much respect, your most obedient Servant,
Thos. Garnett.

On January 6, 1800, the managers resolved that the morning lectures of Dr.
Garnett should be given on Tuesday and Thursday at two, and the evening
lectures at eight, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The first lecture was on Tuesday, March 4. The two rooms which now make
the upper library formed the theatre. It had been fitted up to accommodate
the greatest possible number of auditors, ‘with a greater deference to their
curiosity than to their convenience.’
In the first number of the Journal of the Institution the account of Dr.
Garnett’s lectures for the week beginning April 7 shows the arrangements
that then existed.

Morning Lectures.—On Tuesday, the 8th, the lecture will be on
Charged Electrics and the Theory of the Leyden Phial, with
experiments. On Thursday, Respiration and Animal Heat will be
continued, with the Effects of Oxygen in the Blood. On Saturday, on
Hydrogen Gas and the Composition of Water, Sulphurated and
Phosphorated Hydrogen; and a specimen of the philosophical
fireworks with the inflammable air will be exhibited.
Evening Lectures.—On Monday evening, the 7th, the subject will be
Spontaneous Evaporation, Ignition, and Inflammation, with some
Remarks on Light. On Wednesday evening, the Different Powers of
Bodies as Conductors of Heat; and some Experiments with the Passage

Thermometer. The method of confining heat and applying it to useful
purposes with economy.
Friday being Good Friday, no lecture will be given on that day.
Those who come to the lectures in carriages are requested to give
orders to their coachmen to set down and take up with their horses’
heads towards Grafton Street.

A contemporary account says:

During the winter the lecture room was crowded with persons of the
first distinction and fashion, as well as by those who had individually
contributed much to the promotion of science, and although the
northern accent, which he still retained in a slight degree, rendered his
voice somewhat inharmonious to a London audience, his modest and
unaffected manner of delivering his opinions, his familiar and at the
same time elegant language rendered him the object of almost
universal kindness and approbation.

Dr. Garnett left Glasgow with the expectation that he should have
accommodation for his family in the house of the Institution, and the first
disappointment he met with was the opposition to his wishes in this respect.
When he gave up his position in Glasgow he fully intended to enter into
practice as a physician in London, but from this also he was restrained in
great measure by the managers of the Institution.
His biographer says:

The exertions of the winter in some degree injured his health, and the
uncertainty he saw in his prospects tended greatly to depress his
spirits. He determined, however, to keep his place at the Institution.
In the summer he rejoined his children in Westmoreland, but his
anxiety of mind was not diminished or consequently his health
improved by the relaxation from active employment. He walked over
the same ground and viewed the same prospects that he had formerly
enjoyed in the company of his wife. He had not resolution to check the
impressions as they arose, and thus, instead of being solaced by the

beauties which surrounded him, he gave the reins to his melancholy
fancy, which, unchecked by any other remembrance, dwelt only on the
affection and virtues of her whose loss he had ever to deplore, the want
of whose society he imagined to be the chief source of his misery.

Dr. Garnett showed his own position when he answered the application of
Webster for his recommendation as chemical operator.

Kirkby-Lonsdale, September 27, 1800.
Dear Sir,—I have received your letter, and, in answer to it, must
observe that such is my opinion of both your industry and abilities that
it would give me pleasure to serve you, and I should with the greatest
willingness recommend you to any situation for which I knew you
qualified. That you could in time qualify yourself for the situation of
operator there is not the smallest doubt, but still it must have been
evident to you that if you had acted in that capacity last year, imperfect
as the lectures were, they must have been much more so; for though I
had an operator capable of preparing any experiments that could be
made, still it was with the greatest difficulty that I could get through it.
How, then, could I have done had my time been taken up with
instructing an operator? And, having the greatest number of chemical
things to prepare, I could not have got through it with any credit to
myself or satisfaction to the managers. You are better acquainted with
the duty of an operator than you were before the commencement of the
lectures, and can therefore form some judgment concerning the
knowledge requisite and the labour which it requires. It is unnecessary
to say that an operator must give up his whole time to it; and, as we are
to have a good laboratory, it seems to me necessary that he should be a
good practical chemist, which he cannot be without working some
years in a laboratory. Sadler could do anything in that way, and, were
he a little more steady, would be invaluable in the Institution. You say
nothing what has become of him. I was in hopes he might have been
employed again next year. Indeed, the managers ought, in my opinion,
to endeavour to have an operating chemist who would be permanent.
That you could in time do everything required I am very far from
doubting, and, should it be the wish of the managers, I shall be far

from opposing it; on the contrary, were you qualified, there is not one
person whom I should so much wish to have it. But, before you come
to a determination, you must well consider whether you would relish
the many dirty jobs to which it will subject you as well as the labour;
and, if it be still your wish and determination, it would certainly be
proper to attend an autumnal course of lectures. If it be your intention
to remain in the Institution and to continue as operator, which probably
might be carried on along with the School of Mechanics (though of
this I am not certain, as an operator’s time ought to be dedicated to
natural philosophy), I would do all in my power to instruct you
properly; but to have the weight upon myself without the prospect of
being relieved from it another year is what I dare scarce look at.
In deciding put everything out of the question but the good of the
Institution, for unless you can promote that you cannot promote your
own by its means. You will, I hope, excuse my having spoken thus
freely on the subject which so much concerns us both; consider it well
and favour me with your sentiments again. I suppose that I shall be in
town in about a month, but I should wish to hear from you before.
There are probably some of my objections which you can remove.
I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
Thos. Garnett.

Towards the latter end of the autumn Dr. Garnett returned to the Institution.
The differences between him and the managers soon appeared. He prepared
the outlines of a course of lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy,
to be delivered in 1801, and he printed this preface: ‘This pamphlet contains
the outlines of the popular course on Natural and Experimental Philosophy,
delivered at the Royal Institution every Tuesday at two o’clock during the
present session.—Royal Institution, February 2, 1801.’
At the same time he printed another pamphlet—‘Outlines of a Course of
Lectures on Chemistry delivered at the Royal Institution,’ and to it he put
this preface: ‘This work contains the outlines of the course of chemistry
delivered at the Royal Institution by the Professor of Natural Philosophy
and Chemistry, every Thursday and Saturday at two o’clock during the
present season.—Royal Institution, February 2, 1801.’

In the table of contents he gave thirty lectures, and it was almost exactly a
reprint of the table of contents of the lectures on chemistry published by
him in 1797.
There can be no doubt that Dr. Garnett printed these pamphlets, the one of
twelve and the other of two hundred and sixteen pages, without consulting
the managers; for at their meeting on February 2, 1801, they resolved that
the annual courses of philosophical and chemical lectures at the Royal
Institution should commence ‘as soon as the new theatre can be got ready
for them, and that Count Rumford be authorised to take all such steps on the
part of the managers as shall be necessary in that business;’ and they also
resolved that Sir Joseph Banks, Henry Cavendish, and Count Rumford be a
committee to superintend the drawing up and publication of a suitable
syllabus or account of the philosophical and chemical lectures given at the
Royal Institution. They further resolved that no syllabus of lectures or other
account of what is doing or done, or to be done, at the Royal Institution, be
published by any person or persons without the permission of the aforesaid
committee, or the express leave of the managers formally signified in
writing. This last resolution shows that Count Rumford had then probably
determined that Dr. Garnett should give up his professorship at the Royal
Institution.
On February 16 the managers resolved that their resolutions of February 2
should be communicated to Dr. Garnett, and on this day they determined to
engage Mr. Humphry Davy as Assistant Lecturer on Chemistry. Still the
managers did not decide on the removal of Professor Garnett, for the
following letter shows that Count Rumford at this time had some
conversation with him as to the terms upon which he would give up his
rooms in the house. On February 22 Dr. Garnett wrote to Count Rumford:

Sir,—I have considered the matter you did me the honour to desire I
would deliberate upon, and I place much confidence that when you
and the other managers of the Royal Institution reflect upon the
necessary expenditure for rent, coals, and candles, domestics and other
out-goings, the sum of 100l. per annum will not be considered as an
improper allowance for giving up the apartments and advantages
assigned me in the house of the Institution by the honourable
managers.

You will allow me to add that I have also considered the possibility of
my residing out of the house occasioning any inconvenience to the
interests of the Institution, and that if upon the maturest consideration I
was not confident no such inconvenience could arise, there is no
personal compensation that could tempt me to quit my residence in the
house of the Institution.
It is with great deference I take the advantage at the same time to
submit to your and the other managers’ consideration whether the
funds of the Institution are in your and their judgment in a condition to
authorise any of that gradual increase of my salary of 300l. which the
resolution of September 14, 1799, gave me well-founded reason to
hope for, and which I now most cheerfully and with perfect confidence
beg to leave to the candour and liberality of yourself and the managers.
I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, Sir, your very
obedient Servant,
Thos. Garnett.

On February 23 it was resolved that the consideration of Dr. Garnett’s letter
be postponed till the annual accounts of the Institution for the present year
be made up and the state of its finances ascertained.
The lectures began in February. His biographer says: ‘The transactions of
the winter almost completely undermined his constitution. He became
sallow, listless, melancholy. A gloomy day or the smallest disappointment
gave him inconceivable distress.
‘The effect produced upon his lecturing was remarkable. Debility of body
as well as uneasiness of mind incapacitated him. His spirited and, at the
same time modest, method of delivery was changed into one languid and
hesitating. He would have resigned in the middle of his course, and on one
occasion at least Count Rumford, at a few hours’ notice, found a substitute
to lecture for him.’ This was on the evening of March 2, when with the
shortest possible notice Count Rumford got Dr. Crichton to give the lecture
on account of the illness of Dr. Garnett.

He again wrote to the managers on May 11, and on the 25th a special
meeting of the managers was held, and it was resolved that ‘the managers,
taking into consideration the two applications of Dr. Garnett, are
unanimously of opinion that they cannot agree to make any alteration in his
present salary and situation.’
On June 1 Davy was appointed Lecturer on Chemistry.
On June 15 it was resolved by the managers unanimously that Dr. Garnett’s
resignation should be accepted, that his salary up to the end of the year
should be paid to him by the Committee of Expenditure, and that his letter
of resignation should be preserved. Unfortunately this letter does not exist
now.
‘Dr. Garnett had long determined to apply himself to medical practice, and
at the same time to give private lectures, to secure that income of which he
seemed fated to be disappointed.’
In the summer of 1801 he removed to Great Marlborough Street, and
brought his family to London, and he sought for practice as a physician. He
built a lecture room; he made arrangements for editing the ‘Annals of
Philosophy, Natural History, Chemistry, Literature, Agriculture, and Fine
Arts’ for the year 1800, intending to continue it yearly; and he prepared
himself to give not less than eight courses of lectures during the winter. At
his own house he gave two courses on Chemistry, one on Mineralogy, one
on Botany, two on Experimental Philosophy, and a private course on this
subject also; he gave a course on Botany at Brompton, and in a room at
Tom’s Coffee House, in the City, a course of popular lectures on Zoonomia,
or the Laws of Animal Life in Health and Disease. This was for the
convenience of medical students and others in that part of the town.
A return of ill health prevented him from completing some of these courses,
but he used every means to increase his private practice. In May 1802 he
was elected physician to the Marylebone Dispensary, which he thought
would bring the success which he seemed never able to obtain. Very weak
in body and not exempt from anxiety of mind, he began the hard work of
his Dispensary. He caught typhus fever from one of the patients in June, and
died on the 28th of that month.

He left his children penniless.
On August 2 Dr. Garnett’s executor, Mr. Parker, asked permission to have
the popular lectures on the Laws of Animal Life, the Zoonomia, printed at
the press of the Royal Institution, and that the printer to the Institution, Mr.
W. Savage, might receive subscriptions for the publication of the work. The
managers resolved to subscribe for the Institution 50l., and in 1804, when
the work was published in quarto, they allowed it to be dedicated to them, a
privilege which they refused on many occasions afterwards. The dedication
was in these words:

To the Right Honourable and Honourable the Managers of the Royal
Institution of Great Britain these Lectures, composed by a man who, in
his lifetime, was honoured by their selection as their first lecturer, and
whose infant family have since experienced their benevolence and
protection, are, with permission, dedicated by the trustees of the
subscription in favour of these orphans.

The amount of the subscription was nearly two thousand guineas.

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:

‘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 3,900l. 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—

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.

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:—

Where are these hours on airy pinions borne,
That brought to every guiltless wish success,
When pleasure gladdened each succeeding morn,
And every evening closed with dreams of peace?

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.

His first paper on the ‘Theory of Light and Colours’ was read to the Royal
Society, November 12, 1801. His second paper on this subject was read July
1, 1802, and his third November 24, 1803. His ‘Syllabus of Lectures at the
Royal Institution,’ dated January 19, 1802, p. 116, gives the first printed
account of his views. He says, ‘Speaking of Newton’s views, it will be
sufficient for our present purpose to enumerate the respective explanations
of the principal phenomena of light as they are furnished by the Newtonian
system, and by the theory lately submitted to the Royal Society’; and (p.
117) he says, ‘The colours of thin and of thick plates, and the fringes
produced by inflection, are referred by Newton to the very complicated
effects of an undulating medium on the corpuscles of light, but without any
attempt to accommodate the explanations to the measures obtained from his
own accurate and elegant experiments; those of striated surfaces he has not
noticed. But the general law by which all these appearances are governed
may be very easily deduced from the interference of two coincident
undulations which either co-operate or destroy each other in the same
manner as two musical notes produce an alternate intermission and
remission in the beating of an imperfect unison.’
‘The young gentleman of Edinburgh,’ afterwards known as Lord
Brougham, in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1803, criticised the Royal
Society papers.

It is difficult [he said] to argue with an author whose mind is filled
with a medium of so fickle and vibratory a nature. Were we to take the
trouble to refute him, he might tell us, My opinion is changed, and I
have abandoned that hypothesis, but here is another for you. We
demand if the world of science which Newton once illuminated is to
be as changeable in its modes as the world of taste, which is directed
by the nod of a silly woman or a pampered fop? Has the Royal Society
degraded its publications into bulletins of new and fashionable theories
for the ladies who attend the Royal Institution? Proh pudor! Let the
Professor continue to amuse his audience with an endless variety of
such harmless trifles, but, in the name of science, let them not find
admittance into that venerable repository which contains the works of
Newton, and Boyle, and Cavendish, and Maskelyne, and Herschel.

Young’s most famous experiment of stopping the rays which passed on one
side of a thin card exposed to a sunbeam in a dark chamber Brougham
threw aside, with the assertion that the experiment was inaccurately made.
Dr. Young replied:

The reviewer has here afforded me an opportunity for a triumph, as
gratifying as any triumph can be where an enemy is so contemptible.
Conscious of inability to explain the experiment, too ungenerous to
confess that inability, and too idle to repeat the experiment, he is
compelled to advance the supposition that it was incorrect. ‘Let him
make the experiment, and then deny the result if he can.’

He took no special means to make his answer known, and only one copy of
his reply was sold. The poison sank deep into the public mind, and Dr.
Young’s researches remained comparatively unnoticed until Arago, in 1815,
when reporting upon the optical discoveries of Fresnel, showed that a
greater discoverer than Newton had anticipated the researches of the French
philosopher.
Dr. Young gives the following account of his discovery of the general law
of the interference of light:

It was in May 1801 that I discovered, by reflecting on the beautiful
experiments of Newton, a law which appears to me to account for a
greater variety of interesting phenomena, than any other optical
principle that has yet been made known. I shall endeavour to explain
this law by a comparison:—Suppose a number of equal waves of water
to move upon the surface of a stagnant lake, with a certain constant
velocity, and to enter a narrow channel leading out of the lake;
suppose, then, another similar cause to have existed, another equal
series of waves will arrive at the same channel with the same velocity,
and at the same time with the first. Neither series of waves will destroy
the other, but their effects will be combined. If they enter the channel
in such a manner that the elevations of one series coincide with those
of the other, they must together produce a series of greater joint
elevations; but if the elevations of one series are so situated as to
correspond to the depressions of the other, they must exactly fill up
those depressions, and the surface of the water must remain smooth; at

least I can discover no alternative either from theory or from
experiment.
Now I maintain that similar effects take place whenever two portions
of light are thus mixed, and this I call the general law of the
interference of light.

Within three months he became Professor at the Royal Institution.
In 1801, on the 6th of July, Count Rumford reported to the managers that,
‘at the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, he had had a conversation
with Dr. Young respecting his engaging as Professor of Natural Philosophy
at the Royal Institution and Editor of the Journals, together with a general
superintendency of the house, and it appearing from the report of Count
Rumford that Dr. Young is a man of abilities equal to these undertakings, it
was resolved that Count Rumford be authorised to engage Dr. Young in the
aforesaid capacities at a salary of 300l. per annum.’[23]
On August 3, at the managers’ meeting (Count Rumford in the chair;
present, Henry Cavendish, R. J. Sullivan; secretary J. P. Auriol), Count
Rumford reported that, agreeably to the authority granted him by the
managers, he had engaged Dr. Thomas Young. A copy of his letter to Dr.
Young, expressing the conditions of his engagement, was at the same time
laid before the committee.
The first number of the Journal had been published by Rumford on April 5,
1800. Dr. Young alone edited the fourth number in the autumn of 1801, the
fifth number in December 1801, and, after editing two more numbers alone,
he joined with Davy in the editorship till the Journal stopped in 1803.
On January 19 Dr. Young printed, at the press of the Royal Institution, a
syllabus of his first course of lectures.
The first part was on Natural Philosophy; the second part on
Hydrodynamics; the third part on Physics; and the fourth part on
Mathematical Elements.
Each had a Greek or Latin motto prefixed, and the following advertisement
to the first part was printed:

In order to adapt the delivery of these lectures as much as possible to
the convenience of different persons who may be disposed to attend
them, they will be divided into three parts of nearly equal magnitude,
and in great measure independent of each other. Two parts will be
delivered in succession on Mondays and Wednesdays, at two o’clock,
and the third on Friday evenings at eight. And in future winters, each
part will be taken in turn for the evening lecture, so that the whole
course may be heard at either hour. The fourth part contains all the
preliminary knowledge that is necessary for those who may wish to
enter mathematically on the various subjects of the lectures; it will
save considerable pains in consulting other authors, and the most
experienced may often find it convenient for occasional reference. It
was the more desirable that something of this kind should be inserted,
as mathematical arguments will be avoided as much as possible in the
lectures; and for this reason the demonstrations which occur in the
syllabus are distinguished from the principal text by a smaller type,
and a separate place in the page. In a future edition a fifth part will
probably be added, containing a catalogue of the best authors, with
references to their works upon each subject. One acknowledgment
must, however, be inserted here for the extensive use that has been
made of the valuable articles contributed by Professor Robison to the
‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’

Royal Institution, Albemarle Street,
January 19, 1802.

The volume forms an octavo of upwards of 250 pages; and it is quite
evidence enough that the matter, no less than the manner of the lectures of
Dr. Young, were more fitted for Cambridge than for the Royal Institution.
Dr. Paris thus contrasts Davy’s manner with that of Young:

To judge fairly of the influence of a popular style we should acquaint
ourselves with the effects of an opposite method, and, if an appeal be
made to experience, I may very safely abide the issue. Dr. Young,
whose profound knowledge of the subjects he taught no one will
venture to question, lectured in the same theatre, and to an audience

similarly constituted to that which was attracted by Davy, but he found
the number of his attendants diminish daily, and for no other reason
than that he adopted too severe and didactic a style.

The first afternoon lecture was given by Dr. Young, on Wednesday, January
20, 1802, and the first evening lecture on Friday, January 22.
At the commencement he gave an introductory view of the nature and
objects of the Royal Institution and of the particular plan of the lectures.
Afterwards he proceeded to the subject of mechanics with the doctrine of
motion.
In the introductory lecture, when dwelling on the objects of the Royal
Institution and the dissemination of elementary knowledge, he said:

Those who possess the genuine spirit of scientific investigation, and
who have tasted the pure satisfaction arising from an advancement in
intellectual acquirements, are content to proceed in their researches
without inquiring at every step what they gain by their newly-
discovered lights, and to what practical purposes they are applicable;
they receive a sufficient gratification from the enlargement of their
views of the constitution of the universe, and experience in the
immediate pursuit of knowledge that pleasure which others wish to
obtain more circuitously by its means. And it is one of the principal
advantages of a liberal education that it creates a susceptibility of an
enjoyment so elegant and so rational.

On the subject of the education of females at the Royal Institution he said:

The many leisure hours which are at the command of females in the
superior orders of society may surely be appropriated with greater
satisfaction to the improvement of the mind, and to the acquisition of
knowledge, than to such amusements as are only designed for
facilitating the insipid consumption of superfluous time.
The Royal Institution may in some degree supply the place of a
subordinate university to those whose sex or situation in life has
denied them the advantage of an academical education in the national
seminaries of learning.

With regard to the special objects of the Institution, the theory of practical
mechanics and of manufactures, he said:

We must be more practical than academies of science and more
theoretical than societies for the improvement of arts; while we
endeavour at the same time to give stability to our proceedings by an
annual recurrence to the elementary knowledge which is subservient to
the purposes of both and, as far as we are able, apply to practice the
newest lights which may from time to time be thrown on particular
branches of mechanical science. It is thus that we may most effectually
perform what the idolised sophists of antiquity but verbally professed
—to bring down philosophy from the heavens and to make her an
inhabitant of the earth.
We may venture to affirm that out of every hundred of fancied
improvements in arts or in machines ninety at least, if not ninety-nine,
are either old or useless; the object of our researches is to enable
ourselves to distinguish and to adopt the hundredth. But, while we
prune the luxuriant shoots of youthful invention, we must remember to
perform our task with leniency, and to show that we wish only to give
additional vigour to the healthful branches, and not to extirpate the
parent plant.

He spoke of the repository of models as being a supplementary room for
apparatus exhibited and described in the lectures, and ‘where a few other
articles may perhaps deserve admission.’ He mentioned the library and the
Journals as free from commercial shackles, but made no mention of the
workshops nor of the education of artisans.

When all the advantages which may reasonably be expected from this
Institution shall be fully understood and impartially considered, it is to
be hoped that few persons of liberal minds will be indifferent to its
success or unwilling to contribute to it and to participate in it.
To that regulation which forbids the introduction of any discussions
connected with the learned professions I shall always most willingly
submit and most punctually attend. It requires the study of a
considerable portion of a man’s life to qualify him to be of use to

mankind in any of them, and nothing can be more pernicious to
individuals or to society than the attempting to proceed practically
upon an imperfect conception of a few first principles only. In physic
the wisest can do but little, and the ignorant can only do worse than
nothing; and anxiously as we are disposed to seek whatever relief the
learned and experienced may be able to afford us, so cautiously ought
we to avoid the mischievous interference of the half-studied empiric.
In politics and in religion we need but to look back on the history of
kingdoms and republics, in order to be aware of the mischiefs which
ensue when fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

With regard to his prospectus and lectures he said:

For the sake of those who are not disposed to undertake the labour of
following with mathematical accuracy all the steps of the
demonstrations on which the doctrines of the mechanical sciences are
founded, I shall endeavour to avoid in the whole of this course of
lectures every intricacy which might be perplexing to a beginner, and
every argument which is fitter for the closet than for a public theatre.
Here I propose to support the same propositions by experimental
proofs, not that I consider such proofs as the most conclusive, or as
more interesting to a truly philosophic mind, than a deduction from
general principles, but because there is a satisfaction in discovering the
coincidence of theories with visible effects, and because objects of
sense are of advantage in assisting the imagination to comprehend, and
the memory to retain, what in a more abstracted form might fail to
excite sufficient attention. With regard to the mode of delivering these
lectures, I shall in general entreat my audience to pardon the formality
of a written discourse in favour of the advantage of a superior degree
of order and perspicuity. It would unquestionably be desirable that
every syllable advanced should be rendered perfectly easy and
comprehensible even to the most uninformed, that the most inattentive
might find sufficient variety and entertainment in what is submitted to
them to excite their curiosity, and that in all cases the pleasing, and
sometimes even the surprising, should be united with the instructive
and the important. But, whenever there appears to be a real
impossibility of reconciling these various objects, I shall esteem it

better to seek for substantial utility than temporary amusement; for if
we fail of being useful, for want of being sufficiently popular, we
remain at least respectable; but if we are unsuccessful in our attempts
to amuse, we immediately appear trifling and contemptible. It shall,
however, at all times be my endeavour to avoid each extreme, and I
trust that I shall then only be condemned when I am found abstruse
from ostentation or uninteresting from supineness. The most difficult
thing for a teacher is to recollect how much it cost himself to learn, and
to accommodate his instruction to the apprehension of the uninformed.
By bearing in mind this observation I hope to be able to render my
lectures more and more intelligible and familiar, not by passing over
difficulties, but by endeavouring to facilitate the task of overcoming
them; and if at any time I appear to have failed in this attempt, I shall
think myself honoured by any subsequent inquiries that my audience
may be disposed to make.
The division of the whole course of lectures into three parts was
originally suggested by the periodical succession in which the
appointed hours recur, but it appears to be more convenient than any
other for the regular classification of the subjects. The general
doctrines of motion and their application to all purposes, variable at
pleasure, supply the materials of the first two parts, of which the one
treats of the motions of solid bodies and the other of those of fluids,
including the theory of light. The third part relates to the particular
history of the phenomena of nature, and of the affections of bodies
actually existing in the universe independently of the art of man,
comprehending astronomy, geography, and the doctrine of the
properties of matter, and of the most general and powerful agents that
influence it.
The synthetical order of proceeding from simple and general principles
to their more intimate combinations in particular cases, is by far the
most compendious for conveying information with regard to sciences
that are at all referable to certain fundamental laws. For these laws
being once established, each fact, as soon as it is known, assumes its
place in the system, and is retained in the memory by its relation to the
rest as a connecting link. In the analytical mode, on the contrary, which
is absolutely necessary for the first investigation of truth, we are

obliged to begin by collecting a number of insulated circumstances,
which lead us back by degrees to the knowledge of original principles,
but which, until we arrive at these principles, are merely a burden to
the memory. For the phenomena of nature resemble the scattered
leaves of the Sibylline prophecies; a word only, or a single syllable, is
written on each leaf, which, when separately considered, conveys no
instruction to the mind, but when, by the labour of patient
investigation, every fragment is replaced in its appropriate connexion,
the whole begins at once to speak a perspicuous and a harmonious
language.

On July 5 he requested leave of the managers to be absent during the
months of August and September, taking care in the meantime to provide
sufficient matter for the publication of the Journals. He went with the late
Duke of Richmond and his brother to France. At Paris he was introduced to
the First Consul at the Institute.
This year he was appointed foreign secretary of the Royal Society, and he
held this office for the remainder of his life. He refused the appointment of
secretary in 1812, because he thought it would interfere with his medical
reputation.
In 1803, on January 26, the lectures at the Institution recommenced. Young
and Davy each gave weekly two day lectures and one evening lecture. On
Tuesday and Friday the lectures were in the evening.

On February 21 Young proposed his preface[24] to the second volume of the
Journal of the Institution.
This year, in March, he took his first Cambridge medical degree; he did not
receive his degree as Doctor of Medicine until 1808.
On July 4 the engagement of Dr. Young with the Royal Institution
terminated.[25]
On October 3 he was elected a subscriber for life for his services to the
Institution.
On November 6 he wrote to the managers:

40 Welbeck Street.
I beg to return you my sincere thanks for the privileges of a life
subscriber to the Royal Institution, which you have conferred upon me.
I consider this honour both as a flattering mark of your approbation of
the unremitting attention which it was my endeavour to pay to the
objects of the Institution while I was employed in its service, and as a
substantial advantage in giving me access to a collection of books so
valuable as that which is now forming in it. For this privilege I cannot
show my gratitude better than by endeavouring to make such use of it
as to render the publication of my lectures, which I am preparing, more
and more worthy of the Institution in which they were delivered, and
fitted to co-operate in its exertions for the advancement and
dissemination of mechanical knowledge.

After this time Dr. Young took no part in the progress of the Royal
Institution. A very short sketch of the remainder of his life, therefore, will
be given.
When between thirty-one and forty-one years of age he used his utmost
endeavours to succeed in practice in Welbeck Street. In 1804 he married,
and he built a house at Worthing, where he practised in the autumn for
sixteen years. In 1807 he tried to become physician to the Middlesex
Hospital. In this he failed, but he lectured there on Chemistry, Physiology,
Nosology, Practice of Medicine, and Materia Medica. Many of the lectures
formed afterwards part of his work on ‘Medical Literature.’
This year he published his ‘Course of Lectures at the Royal Institution’ in
two quarto volumes. The long delay was occasioned partly from the
increase of matter and partly from the difficulty of the engravings. Through
the bankruptcy of his publisher, Johnson, he lost the 1,000l. he was to
receive for his work. The Dean of Ely says of these volumes: ‘They form
altogether the most comprehensive system of natural philosophy and of
what the French call physics that has ever been published in this country;
equally remarkable for precision and accuracy in the enunciation of the vast
multitude of propositions and facts which they contain, for the boldness
with which they enter upon the discussion of the most abstruse and difficult

subjects, and for the addition or suggestion of new matter or new views in
almost every department of philosophy.’
In the autumn of 1810 he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks an account of ‘an
agricultural micrometer for measuring the fineness of wool.’ See Appendix
II.
On January 24, 1811, he was elected one of the physicians of St. George’s
Hospital. The contest, he says, was almost unparalleled. ‘The Cabbells were
very naturally confident of triumphant success; parliamentary influence and
the natural wish to serve a man who is likely to be Lord Chancellor made
Sir S. Romilly’s nephew, Dr. Roget, very formidable.’ ‘Mrs. Young has
emerged from death to life by the event of this contest.’ Before and after
this time he wrote frequently for the ‘Quarterly Review,’ to which he
contributed eighteen articles. Perhaps the most celebrated was on the
‘Herculanean Manuscripts,’ of which eighteen hundred were discovered. ‘It
is a consolation to know,’ said a friend, ‘that Brougham, who took
advantage of the growing circulation of the ‘Edinburgh Review’ to
desseminate his vile abuse of you, and Jeffery, who permitted him to do so,
should be condemned to hear your praises on all sides, and to feel that the
publication in which they are engaged is suffering, and is likely to suffer, by
your means.’
In 1814 he was asked to contribute to the new supplement of the
‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ but he declined, because ‘it was necessary to
abstain as much as possible from appearing before the public as an author in
any department of science not immediately medical.’
During the next ten years of Dr. Young’s life the failure of his efforts to
succeed as a physician led him to the highest literary success that could be
attained.
In 1814 he began his ‘Hieroglyphical Researches,’ and throughout the
summer and autumn he worked at the Rosetta Stone.
At the end of the year he wrote to Mr. Hudson Gurney, who had got him
Champollion’s book—‘Egypt under the Pharaohs:’ ‘I have only spent
literally five minutes in looking over Champollion, turning by means of the
index to the parts where he has quoted the inscription of Rosetta. He

follows Akerblad (a Swedish attaché at Paris, a good classical and first-rate
Coptic scholar, who had written a letter on this stone to Silvestre de Sacy)
blindly, with scarcely any acknowledgment. But he has certainly picked out
the sense of a few passages in the inscription by means of Akerblad’s
investigations, although in four or five Coptic words which he pretends to
have found in it he is wrong in all but one, and that is a very short and a
very obvious one. My translation is printed; it is anonymous, and must for
some time remain so, but everybody whose approbation is worth having
will know the author.’ In the summer of this year Arago and Gay-Lussac
visited him at Worthing. Young then learned what Fresnel was doing on the
diffraction of light, and they saw what Young had published in his lectures
in 1807.
In 1816 he proposed to the editor of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ to write
for him. He says: ‘I would also suggest (in addition to sound) alphabet,
annuities, attraction, capillary action, cohesion, colour, dew, Egypt, eye,
forms, friction, halo, hieroglyphics, hydraulics, motion, resistance, ship,
strength, tides, and waves. Anything of a medical nature which you might
think desirable would of course be doubly so to me. Nor should I be
difficult with respect to any other subject that might occur to you. L’alti non
temo, e l’umili non sdegno.’ He contributed sixty-three articles; forty-six
were biographical. This year he published his ‘Translation of the
Hieroglyphics’ with a correspondence with De Sacy and Akerblad.
In 1818 he wrote the article ‘Egypt’ for the Encyclopædia. ‘It was
pronounced to be the greatest effort of scholarship and ingenuity of which
modern literature could boast; yet it was only a popular and superficial
sketch of the vast mass of materials which his diligence had collected and
his genius had interpreted.’
He was this year appointed superintendent of the ‘Nautical Almanac’ and
secretary of the Board of Longitude, which was established to relieve the
Astronomer Royal from all scientific questions regarding the interests of
navigation. He immediately set himself to correct all the errors of the
Almanac that endangered the safety of ships, but, considering it as intended
for nautical and not astronomical use, he resisted the changes which
practical astronomers strongly urged on him and on the Government.

In 1822 he wrote to Mr. Gurney from Paris:

In my own pursuits I have found abundance of novelty to interest me,
both the scientific and literary departments of the Institute happening
at this moment to be particularly engaged with my investigations, and
a Frenchman having in each of them been engaged in going over my
own ground without being fully acquainted with what I had done, and
having had to exclaim, ‘Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.’ Fresnel,
a young mathematician of the civil engineers, has really been doing
some good things in the extension and application of my theory of
light, and Champollion, the author of the book you brought over, has
been working still harder upon the Egyptian characters. He devotes his
whole time to the pursuit, and he has been wonderfully successful in
some of the documents which he has obtained.
How far he will acknowledge everything which he has either borrowed
or might have borrowed from me, I am not quite confident, but the
world will be sure to remark que c’est le premier pas qui coûte, though
the proverb is less true in this case than in most others, for here every
step is laborious.

The best comparative estimate of the value of the work of Young and
Fresnel on light was given by Sir John Herschel, in 1827, at the end of his
view of the undulating theory of light in the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana’:

Such is the beautiful theory of Fresnel and Young, for we must not, in
our regard for one great name, forget the justice which is due to the
other; and to separate them, and to assign to each his share, would be
as impracticable as invidious, so intimately are they blended together
throughout every part of this system—early, acute, and pregnant
suggestion characterising the one, and maturity of thought, fulness of
systematic development, and decisive experimental illustration equally
distinguishing the other.

During the last five years of Dr. Young’s life, when he was between fifty-
one and fifty-six years old, he ceased to be a practising physician, and
occupied himself with science and literature only.

In 1827, at the anniversary of the Royal Society, after the resignation of the
presidency by Sir Humphry Davy, the claims of Dr. Young were too strong
to be altogether neglected.
Writing to his sister he says:

I find there has been pretty general conversation about making me
President of the Royal Society, and I really think if I were foolish
enough to wish for the office, I am at this moment popular enough to
obtain it; but you well know that nothing is further from my wishes.

Davies Gilbert was chosen. ‘I told him,’ says Young, ‘that he had not quite
enough of the devil in him, that Sir Joseph Banks should have left his
eyebrows to go with his cocked hat, if he had left the Society nothing else.’
In the summer of 1828 he visited Paris for the last time on his way to
Geneva. He was then one of the eight foreign associates of the Academy. To
Mr. Gurney he wrote:

My principal object was Champollion, and with him I have been
completely successful as far as I wanted his assistance, for, to say the
truth, our conferences have not been very gratifying to my vanity. He
has done so much more and so much better than I had any reason to
believe he would or could have done, and, as he feels his own
importance more, he feels less occasion to be tenacious of any trifling
claims which may justly be denied him, and in this spirit he has borne
my criticisms with perfect good humour, though Arago has charged me
with some degree of undue severity, and wanted to pass the matter
over as not having been published as mine; but to this I could not
consent: and, supposing that Champollion might have been
unacquainted with the remarks, I thought it a matter of conscience to
carry them to him this morning, before I allowed him to continue his
profuse liberality in furnishing me with more than I want.

From Geneva Young sent Arago, at his request, a statement of his claims.
He gave full justice to Champollion. But when Arago, a few years later,
read his éloge of Young, he still said that Young’s principle of phonetisation
of the hieroglyphics was mixed with error, chiefly by making symbols stand

for words and syllables, instead of for letters only. He also denied Young’s
knowledge of two or more signs for the same letter.
His health up to this time, with the exception before mentioned, had been
perfect. During this summer excursion he was most easily fatigued, and
appeared to age rapidly.
In a letter written soon after his return he says:

As for myself, I am perfectly content with the life I lead—walking on
business of routine every day from eleven to two, the rest of the day
sitting over my hieroglyphics, or my mathematics, and conversing in
my library with people beyond the Alps or the Mediterranean. I have
lost all ambition for a more bustling life, or more active scenes, and I
believe I am as happy as a person so old in soul is capable of being. In
mental faculties I am not yet old, and I amuse myself almost daily with
some petty bonnes fortunes among some of the nine sisters. I hear
nothing whatever from the Admiralty, and so much the better, except
receiving 300l. a year instead of four. As for Croker, I never believe a
word of his going out, and he may remain in for aught I care, and be
Lord Melville’s master if he chooses; for the stronger of two heads will
generally direct the weaker in the long run. I am deep in the value of
life, and I really begin to think that people do live longer than was
formerly supposed, though not in the extravagant degree that was
asserted.

In 1828, at the Royal Society, when the President, Davies Gilbert,
announced Wollaston’s donation of 2,000l. for the promotion of scientific
research and his own gift of 1,000l., Young, as senior officer, returned
thanks for the Society. He tells Mr. Gurney, ‘I summoned up courage to take
the first opportunity of muttering out, “Mr. President, a gentleman on my
right says he never heard me make a speech.”’
In January 1829 he wrote:

Our new Committee of Longitude is settled, at least for the present,
though the radical abuse of the ‘Nautical Almanac’ is likely to
continue; but, fortunately for my security, they have put the Admiralty
and the ‘Nautical Almanac’ together; so they may do their worst.

Croker has appointed Sabine and Faraday and me to constitute a
scientific committee to advise the Admiralty, which was all that the
Board of Longitude would do, and it is better that things should be
called by their right names.

Immediately a memorial was sent to the Prime Minister, the Duke of
Wellington, against the ‘Nautical Almanac.’ A report on this paper was
made by Dr. Young in February.

Though his health was at this time rapidly declining, his observations
were written with his usual precision and ability, giving way in one
instance only to feelings of personal resentment, if a stronger term may
not be used, which had been provoked by attacks of unusual violence
and bitterness. It is hardly necessary to add that he adhered
substantially to the views which he had previously maintained. His
death, which took place on May 10, put an end to the contest.

The life of Dr. Young began, continued, and ended strangely. Throughout he
was a phenomenon. His course was very different from what might have
been expected and quite opposed to that which would have been most
suited to him.
He was the great physicist of his time, and yet ‘at no period of his life was
he fond of repeating experiments or even of originating new ones. He
considered that, however necessary to the advancement of science, they
demanded a great sacrifice of time; and that, when a fact was once
established, that time was better employed in considering the purposes to
which it might be applied or the principles which it might tend to elucidate.’
He was kind by nature and a Quaker by education, and yet he was always at
war for his discoveries. He never was free from a scientific or literary
controversy. As a professor at the Royal Institution, as a hospital physician
at St. George’s, and still more as a practitioner of medicine in London and
Worthing, his powers were entirely misdirected. With a culture like that of
Newton what noble fruit might not Young have brought forth! The work he
did for science was undervalued during his life; nevertheless he was
content; and nothing shows that he foresaw or wished for that great
reputation which has gradually gathered round his name. Two years before

his death, writing to his sister-in-law regarding the praise which Herschel
had given him in his ‘Treatise on Light,’ he said:

I think he has divided the prize very fairly, and I dare say poor Fresnel,
if he had lived, would have preferred his share of the honour as much
as I do mine. It was before I knew you that mine was earned, and acute
suggestion was then—and indeed always—more in the line of my
ambition than experimental illustration. But surely one that is
conscious that such things may be said with some truth (or who
imagines it) has no further temptation to be President of the Royal
Society even if he could.

His character was drawn by Sir Humphry Davy thus: ‘A man of universal
erudition and almost universal accomplishments. Had he limited himself to
any one department of knowledge he must have been first in that
department. But as a mathematician, a scholar, and hieroglyphist he was
eminent; and he knew so much that it is difficult to say what he did not
know. He was a most amiable and good-tempered man; too fond, perhaps,
of the society of persons of rank for a true philosopher.’
Mr. Davies Gilbert, the President of the Royal Society, in his speech from
the chair on the death of Young, said:

He came into the world with a confidence in his own talents, growing
out of an expectation of excellence entertained in common by all his
friends, which expectation was more than realised in the progress of
his future life. The multiplied objects which he pursued were carried to
such an extent, that each might have been supposed to have
exclusively occupied the full powers of his mind; knowledge in the
abstract, the most enlarged generalisations, and the most minute and
intricate details were equally effected by him; but he had most pleasure
in that which appeared to be most difficult of investigation. The
example is only to be followed by those of equal perseverance.

CHAPTER V.
THE PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO
THE TIME OF FARADAY.
1804 to 1814.
In 1804 the change in the original management and objects of the Royal
Institution was completed. The place which Rumford, with the help of Sir
Joseph Banks, had held was taken by Mr. Bernard, who was supported by
Sir John Hippesley. He knew nothing of science but much of the world, and
his aim for the Institution can be given in his own words. ‘The object has
been great and important, not less than that of giving fashion to science.’
In the spring the report of the visitors reflected the picture of Mr. Bernard’s
management, but the shadow of future greatness was there. Mention was
made of the intention to carry on original inquiries upon new objects of
science.
The visitors said:

There is every reason to suppose that a general interest in favour of the
establishment has been created among the inhabitants of the
metropolis.
The laboratory has been enlarged by the old workshop; some of the
space has been filled up with seats as a theatre for those who attend the
experiments of research; an arched opening is being made in the wall
in front of the table of the laboratory. This part of the establishment is
now found to answer very completely the end of enabling the
Professor of Chemistry and his assistants to prepare materials for the
chemical lectures, and to carry on original inquiries upon new objects
of science. A collection of minerals has been formed of more than
3,000 specimens, principally from presents. Great progress has been
made in the library in the old lecture room; the library of the late
Thomas Astle, Esq., has been purchased for 1,000 guineas. It contains

a variety of scarce and valuable books in ancient British history,
topography, and antiquities. It will soon be opened. The model room
has been rearranged, and the number of models slightly increased, but
the adequate supply of useful models still continues a desideratum in
our establishment, and seems to call for every exertion, as forming so
interesting a part of the original prospectus of the Institution. The
printing press has been removed; its utility has not been found
adequate to its expense. At the same time it has occupied a space in the
upper story which may hereafter be employed to greater advantage.
The number and variety of the public lectures have been advantageous.
The great improvements made during the year offer every reasonable
prospect of increased advantage and extended utility.

In January Mr. Bernard was full of energy for the lectures. To the managers
he said he had reason to flatter himself that Mr. Fletcher, of Cecil Street,
would lecture on Natural Philosophy (but Mr. Fletcher could not find room
for his course, as Mr. Allen was engaged on the same subject). Mr. Crowe
would lecture on History; Dr. Stanger on Physiology, and give another
course on Medicine; Dr. James Smith on Botany; John Opie on Painting;
Astley Cooper on Comparative Anatomy (but he did not give the lectures).
All these courses were not to cost 150l., if in two or three instances the
privileges of a life subscriber were granted. Davy was asked to report on the
means of escape in case of fire; on lighting the theatre; and whether a plan
could be formed for the regular publication of the Journal.
In February the printing office was discontinued and the Journals were
given up. Mr. Savage bought the printing press and type and removed them
in May, and became printer to the Royal Institution on his own account.
In April all Sir Guy Carleton’s manuscripts on the American War, including
a copy of the treaty of peace between England and America, signed by
Benjamin Franklin, were given to the library. The bye-laws regarding the
library of reference were made less strict. In May Mr. Bernard announced
his arrangements for the autumn and spring lectures.
Davy agreed to give three courses; the Rev. Sydney Smith two courses of
ten lectures each on Moral Philosophy, one from November 10 to January

30 and the other from February 20 to May 20, for 50l. and the compliment
of a life admission to him and Mrs. Smith. Mr. Fletcher was to give twenty-
four lectures on Natural Philosophy; Mr. Landseer, three lectures on
Engraving at eight o’clock on Monday evenings; Dr. Crotch, six lectures on
Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Two letters written at this time by Sir Joseph Banks to Count Rumford at
Paris give some insight into the divisions among the managers, the causes
of disagreement, and the different motives that had been working in the
Institution almost from its commencement. It is clear that Count Rumford
and Sir Joseph Banks especially desired the promotion of scientific
knowledge among the poor and the rich, and that Mr. Bernard and Sir John
Hippesley believed that the success of the Institution depended upon
fashionable popularity. For the first three years the advancement of
scientific knowledge was the chief object of the Institution; in the fourth
and fifth years this object gave way to that of fashionable popularity, which
was sought for until the original investigations of Davy again made science,
in the noble function of new discovery, the life of the Royal Institution.

SIR JOSEPH BANKS TO COUNT RUMFORD.
April 1804.
I am very glad to find by your letter that you are well and happy where
you now are. In truth, you seem so much so that your friends here
begin to suppose you will take root in the soil where you now grow. I
cannot, however, disguise that your not appearing in England last year,
as I had reason to expect you would have done, has been a material
disappointment to me and a great detriment to the Royal Institution.
It is now entirely in the hands of the profane. I have declared my
dissatisfaction at the mode in which it is carried on and my resolution
not to attend in future. Had my health and spirits not failed me, I could
have kept matters in their proper level, but, sick, alone, and
unsupported, I have given up what cannot now easily be recovered.
The Royal Society, however, goes on extremely well; our members are
industrious, especially Mr. Hatchett, whose chemical discoveries do
him every day more and more credit. We shall not now, I trust, go

astray, as I think we have not one attending member who is at all
addicted to politics.
All our subordinate societies also seem to prosper, and labour
diligently in their respective departments; we have newly formed one
for the improvement of horticulture, which promises to become very
numerous. I send you a book on the subject of heat, &c. (Leslie),
which certainly contains many interesting experiments and much bad
reasoning. Upon the whole, however, it appears to me that he will not
be an unlikely candidate for your medal of the next year. Pray let me
have your opinion of the subject; and, if you disapprove of him, who
do you think a more successful promoter of the science you wish to
encourage?
I send your medals by Mr. ——. This is the first opportunity I have
had, or you would sooner have received them. [These were the first
Rumford medals, awarded to Rumford himself.]

SIR JOSEPH BANKS TO COUNT RUMFORD.
Soho Square, June 6, 1804.
As it does not prove convenient to Mr. Livingstone to take with him
the Society’s transactions or the observations of the Royal
Observatory, which I wished to have sent, I am obliged to confine
myself to the sending the enclosed books—‘Leslie on Heat’ for your
acceptance, the ‘Nautical Almanac’ for M. Delambre—and the medals
which the Royal Society decreed to you a year and a half ago.
On the subject of the first I much wish for your opinion whether the
author may be considered a proper person to receive your medal next
year; and, if not, who you think a more deserving candidate?
Be so good as to deliver the ‘Nautical Almanac’ to M. Delambre with
my best regards, and to assure the Institute that I shall never forget the
various favours I have in my literary character received from them or
those which literary people, my friends, have received from them on
my account. I honour and respect them both as a body and as

individuals more than ever, and look forward with earnest wishes for
the time when I may again communicate with them freely, as I once
had the happiness of doing. I have received their medallic diplomas for
Mr. Cavendish, Dr. Maskelyne, Dr. Herschel, and myself, and will
distribute them without delay. Pray remind them, however, that Mr.
James Forbes, F.R.S., is still a prisoner among them; though an old
man, possibly he does not wish to return home, as his daughter has
married into a French family. Possibly other insurmountable obstacles
have prevented his release, as the Institute have so nobly and
handsomely proved their wish that the Fellows of the Royal Society
should be restored to their pursuits of science.
From the tone of your letter it appears to me that you are likely to take
root in the soil in which you now grow. I am sorry that you did not
return to England, as you gave me every reason to expect you would,
last year. Your house at Brompton is an inadequate pledge of your
future residence here, as experience has confirmed me in believing.
In the meantime the Institution has irrevocably fallen into the hands of
the enemy, and is now perverted to a hundred uses for which you and I
never intended it. I could have successfully resisted their innovations
had you been here, but, alone, unsupported, and this year confined to
my house for three months by disease (gout), my spirit was too much
broken to admit of my engaging singly with the host of H.’s and
B.’s[26] who had possession of the fortress. Adieu, then, Institution! I
have long ago declared my intention of attending no more.
You desire that Davy may have your papers for insertion in the
Journals. Alas! the Journals have ceased for more than a year, and the
printing office is removed from the house of the Institution. Your
papers, however, shall be communicated to him, as they have already
been to Sir Charles Blagden.

During this year a series of lectures was begun at the Institution by the Rev.
Sydney Smith, which for fashionable attraction surpassed any courses that
have ever been delivered there.
Mr. Horner thus wrote to Mr. J. A. Murray:

The Temple, November 15, 1804.
I suppose you know that Smith begins to lecture on Moral Philosophy
next Saturday at the Royal Institution? You would be amused to hear
the account he gives of his own qualifications for the task and his
mode of manufacturing philosophy; he will do the thing very cleverly,
I have little doubt, as to general manner, and he is sufficiently aware of
all the forbearances to be observed. Profound lectures on metaphysics
would be unsuitable to the place; he may do some good if he makes
the subject amusing. He will contribute, like his other associates of the
Institution, to make the real blue-stockings a little more disagreeable
than ever and sensible women a little more sensible. It seems to me,
for the interest of general conversation, that these subjects should not
be quite so unknown to them as to be thought unintelligible pedantry if
mentioned in their company; and the impertinence of those who set up
as adepts is the price we must pay for this important acquisition. Your
chemists and metaphysicians in petticoats are altogether out of nature
—that is, when they make a trade or distinction of such pursuits—but
when they take a little general learning as an accomplishment they
keep it in very tolerable order. Tell me if I take this rightly. I know it is
not well settled, and men of letters usually lean too much on one side.
Good afternoon.

Mr. Horner wrote another letter to Mr. Thomas Thompson:

The Temple, November 21, 1804.
Our friend Sydney gave his first lecture on Saturday. I was not there,
but all the accounts I have collected from different sorts of people
agree in its favour, and that it took extremely well.

During the second course Mr. Horner wrote to Lady Mackintosh at
Bombay:

The Temple, April 18, 1805.
We have all this winter had but two topics of conversation—Young
Roscius and the lectures of the Right Reverend our Bishop of
Mickleham.[27] His Lordship’s success has been beyond all possible

conjecture—from six to eight hundred hearers; not a seat to be found,
even if you go half-an-hour before the time. Nobody else, to be sure,
could have executed such an undertaking with the least chance of this
sort of success; for who else could make such a mixture of odd
paradox, quaint fun, manly sense, liberal opinion, striking language?
You must have had more than enough of the other great delight of the
public—the Roscius. As it is the propensity of all superior minds to
admire, I am sorry that this occasion has added another to my own
proofs that I must place myself on a very low form; there never was
such a rage except that for Sydney.

In the ‘Life of Sydney Smith’ Lady Holland mentions that Mr. Bernard
obtained these lectures for the Institution. She says:

He obtained considerable increase of reputation by a course of lectures
on Moral Philosophy, which Sir Thomas Bernard, who interested
himself much about the Royal Institution, proposed to him to give. He
continued to lecture for three successive years.

On May 17, 1804, a new proposal was made for the advancement of science
at the Royal Institution. A special meeting of the managers and visitors was
held, and an address to the proprietors and subscribers was read and
approved, and ordered to be circulated, respecting the formation of a
mineralogical collection and an assay office on a large scale for the
improvement of mineralogy and metallurgy.
The Hon. G. F. Greville, Sir J. St. Aubyn, Sir A. Hume, proposed to raise a
fund of 4,000l. to arrange a collection in a manner which should exhibit all
the interesting series of mineralogical facts; and they proposed to establish
an assay office, to be exclusively employed for the advancement of
mineralogy and metallurgy. They thought that the whole time of a
mineralogist of considerable talent would be employed; and that the
continued attention of a chemist of approved abilities would be required.
It was proposed that a mineralogical institution like the library institution
should be united to the Royal Institution.
The address relating to the formation of this economic museum ended thus:
‘The proprietors and subscribers may be assured that the managers and

visitors will never consider their labours as finished, while there remains
any effort to be made for the diffusion and useful application of practical
science in this country. They would indeed have deemed themselves
extremely culpable if there had been any delay or neglect on their part in
submitting to the consideration of their members, and of the public, a plan
which promises essentially to promote the prosperity of the Royal
Institution, and at the same time to contribute to the extension of useful
science and to the increase of our national resources.’
A plan was drawn up. There were to be hereditary patrons, paying 100l. and
upwards, and patrons for life, paying 50l., and subscribers of smaller sums
might unite when they had subscribed sixty guineas and select one of
themselves as patron. The patrons were to elect a chairman, a deputy-
chairman, a treasurer and a secretary, committees and sub-committees.
In 1804 Lord Dartmouth gave 200l. worth of minerals, and Mr. Hatchett
gave the cases for them.
In 1805 Davy gave his own collection of minerals, valued at 100 guineas.
The committee rooms were made into the mineral room, and 250l. was
spent in fitting it up. Davy went to Wales and Ireland to collect minerals,
and the following year he again went to the west and north of Ireland, and
took with him William Payne, the boy belonging to the laboratory.
At the end of 1805 the rooms for the mineralogical collection were ready,
and the arrangement of the mineralogical and geological specimens was
made under the directions of Mr. Davy. The minerals and fossils were
removed from the model room, where they had been deposited, and in
consequence the models were arranged to more advantage.
On June 9, 1806, a report was made by Mr. Bernard on the total failure of
the subscriptions to the mineralogical collection. Thereupon the managers
resolved that the three original proposers should receive back their
subscriptions, and that thanks should be given to them ‘for the benefits
which they had conferred upon the Institution by suggesting the idea of a
mineralogical collection, and by showing that it will be practicable to
establish and to support it out of the funds of the Institution.’
In their answer the proposers said:

We concur in your opinion that the space allotted for minerals and the
plan pursued by the managers, according to the funds which the
Institution can supply, will be found equal to the illustration of very
interesting courses of mineralogy and geology, and it is bare justice to
Mr. Davy to state that his activity and intelligence in bringing to notice
the important facts of the natural history of Great Britain and Ireland,
with the aid of the managers to make his assays keep pace with his
discoveries, will ensure much credit to the Royal Institution and great
benefit to the public.

We are still of opinion that, when the importance of a general
collection and of a laboratory of assay in constant activity is felt as it
ought to be, the influence of the Royal Institution will not be exerted in
vain. The plan, which the managers have limited to the present scale of
their building and to the funds of their Institution, has obtained general
approbation. Its success will give a bias to public opinion favourable to
the progress of mineralogy and chemistry, and enable the managers at
a future time to extend their buildings, establishments, and plan to the
scale which unsuccessfully we ventured to suggest to be better
proportioned to their importance.

The original proposal was too scientific and not sufficiently fashionable to
agree with the management of Mr. Bernard at this time.
During this year another proposal was made for the good of science at the
Institution. This is to be seen in a letter from Mr. Davy to Mr. Bernard,
written on June 2:

Dear Sir,—I have reflected on our conversation at Brighthelmstone
with regard to the utility of some new arrangements that may be made
in the chemical department of the Royal Institution, and I still entertain
the same opinions on the subject.
In all universities and places of public scientific instruction it is, I
believe, usual for the professors or teachers to admit into their