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.