Cayley's Collected Mathematical Papers, in thirteen volumes, were published between 1889 and 1897, and have since been followed by similar collections of the mathematical and scientific work of Kelvin, Rayleigh, Reynolds, Stokes, Sylvester, Tait, and other scholars. Meanwhile, larger publishing premises were found to be necessary, and in 1884 the London office was moved to Ave Maria Lane; with the growth of business these premises similarly became inadequate and the lease of the present offices in Fetter Lane was bought by the university in 1904.
One of the most important of the Syndics' undertakings towards the end of the last century was The Cambridge Modern History. Lord Acton had been elected Regius Professor of Modern History in 1895 and early in 1896 the Syndics approached him with a view to the compilation of a great English universal history. In his report of 15 July, 1896 Lord Acton wrote:
Universal history is not the sum of all particular histories, and ought to be contemplated, first, in its distinctive essence, as Renaissance, Reformation, Religious Wars, Absolute Monarchy, Revolution, etc. The several countries may or may not contribute to feed the main stream, and the distribution of matter must be made accordingly. The history of nations that are off the line must not suffer; it must be told as accurately as if the whole was divided into annals....
and later in a more detailed report:
It will be necessary to prescribe exact limits and conditions, and to explain clearly what we desire to obtain, and to avoid. We shall avoid the needless utterance of opinion, and the service of a cause. Contributors will understand that we are established not under the meridian of Greenwich, but in longitude 30 West; that our Waterloo must be one that satisfies French and English, Germans and Dutch alike.... Ultimate history we cannot have in this generation; but we can dispose of conventional history and show the point we have reached on the road from the one to the other.... If History is often called the teacher and the guide that regulates public life, which, to individuals as to societies, is as important as private, this is the time and the place to prove the title....
The essential elements of the plan I propose for consideration are these:
Division of subjects among many specially qualified writers.
Highest pitch of knowledge without the display.
Distinction between the organic unity of general history and the sum of national histories, as the principle for selecting and distributing matter.
Proportion between historic thought and historic fact.