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.