A few years after, Sir David Brewster, Sir John Robison, Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Rev. William Vernon Harcourt, undertook the foundation of a similar periodical and itinerant society in our own country.
It appeared to me that the original organization of the British Association, as developed at York and at Oxford, was defective,—that its basis was not sufficiently extended. In fact, that other sciences besides the physical were wanting for the harmony and success of the whole. There was no section to interest the landed proprietors or those members of their families who sat in either house of parliament. Nor was there much to attract the manufacturer or the retail dealer. A purely accidental circumstance enabled me to remedy one of these defects.[59] {433}
[58] Vol. x., p. 225. 1829.
[59] I afterwards succeeded in getting the British Association to adopt the plan of having an exhibition of specimens of the various manufactures and commercial products of the districts it successively visited. This commenced at Newcastle in 1838, and was carried to a much greater extent in the following year at Birmingham. I am not aware that this fact was ever referred to by those who got up the Exhibition of 1851.
〈THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY: ITS ORIGIN.〉
At the Third Meeting of the British Association at Cambridge in 1833, I happened, one afternoon, to call on my old and valued friend the Rev. Richard Jones, Professor of Political Economy at Haileybury, who was then residing in apartments at Trinity College. He informed me that he had just had a long conversation with our mutual friend M. Quételet, who had been sent officially by the Belgian Government to attend the meeting of the British Association. That M. Quételet had brought with him a budget of statistical facts, and that as there was no place for it in any section, he (Professor Jones) had asked M. Quételet to come to him that evening, and had invited Sir Charles Lemon, Professor Malthus, Mr. Drinkwater (afterwards Mr. Bethune),[60] and one or two others interested in the subject, to meet him, at the same time requesting me to join the party. I gladly accepted this invitation and departed. I had not, however, reached the gate of Trinity College before it occurred to me that there was now an opportunity of doing good service to the British Association. I returned to the apartments of my friend, explained to him my views, in which he fully coincided, and I suggested the formation of a Statistical Section. We both agreed that unless some unusual course were taken, it would be impossible to get such a Section organized until the meeting in the following year. I therefore proposed that when we met in the evening we should consider the question of constituting ourselves provisionally a Statistical Section, and afterwards, at the general meeting in the Senate House, that I should explain the circumstance which had arisen, and the {434} great advantage to the British Association of rendering such a Section a permanent branch of its institution. After further explanations its utility was fully admitted; certain rather stringent rules were laid down in order to confine its inquiries to collections of facts. The sanction of the General Meeting was then given to the establishment of the Statistical Section, and before the termination of the Congress, a larger audience was collected in its meeting-room than in those of any of its sister sciences.
[60] I have reason to believe, from the Note Book of Mr. Drinkwater (Bethune), that this meeting was held on Wednesday, 26th June, 1833.
The interest of our discussions, and the mass of materials which now began to open upon our view, naturally indicated the necessity of forming a more permanent society for their collection. The British Association approved of the appointment of a permanent committee of this section. I was requested to act as chairman, and Mr. Drinkwater as secretary. On the 15th March, 1834, at a public meeting held in London, the Marquis of Lansdowne in the Chair, it was resolved to establish the Statistical Society of London.
The Committee of the British Association, in reporting this fact to the Council, observe that “though the want of such a society has been long felt and acknowledged, the successful establishment of it, after every previous attempt had failed, has been due altogether to the impulse given by the last meeting of the Association. The distinguished foreigner (M. Quételet) who contributed so materially to the formation of the Statistical Section, was attracted to England principally with a view of attending that meeting; and the Committee hail this as a signal instance of the beneficial results to be expected from that personal intercourse among the enlightened men of all countries, which it is a principal object of the British Association to encourage and facilitate.”
M. Quételet, on his return to his own country, continued to {435} direct by his counsel, and to advance, by his own indefatigable industry, those statistical inquiries of which the Belgian Government so well appreciated the advantage.