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:

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.

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.