Towards the close of the year 1784, Sir Benjamin Thompson, at the age of thirty-one, took up his residence at Munich, and filled the posts of aide-de-camp and chamberlain to the Elector; being thus connected both with the military and civil service of the Bavarian dominions. Into these twin branches of government he soon introduced many important and salutary reforms; he reorganized the Bavarian army, and introduced many improvements into the art of agriculture as practised in that part of Europe; he also took wise and effectual measures for the suppression of mendicancy, and for the ameliorization of the condition of the poor at Munich, introducing among them some excellent plans for the economization of food and fuel.
While investigating this latter subject, Sir Benjamin paid particular attention to the construction of grates and fireplaces, and to the scientific properties of light and heat. He so improved the methods of heating apartments and of cooking food, as to produce a saving in the precious element of heat varying from one-half to seven-eighths of the fuel previously consumed; so that it was wittily said, that he would never rest satisfied until he had cooked his dinner with his neighbours' smoke. To him also is the honour due of being the first to explain the manner in which heat is propagated in fluids. In requital of these important services to the Bavarian state, Thompson was decorated with two orders of Polish knighthood; he also received the appointments of member of the Council of State and lieutenant-general in the army, was created commander-in-chief of the general staff, minister of war, and superintendent of the police of the electorate, and was finally, in 1790, raised to the dignity of Count of the Holy Roman Empire, by the title of Count Rumford, in memory of the American village where he had formerly officiated as schoolmaster. The scientific part of the community also showed their esteem for him, by electing him a member of the Academies of Munich and Manheim; and in 1787, when on a visit to Prussia, he was chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin.
When the advance of the French army under Moreau compelled the Elector to quit his capital, Count Rumford was for a short time placed at the head of the Regency, and in this capacity succeeded in the arduous task of freeing the Bavarian state from foreign invasion. This important service increased Rumford's reputation with the Elector and the people, and he was permitted to settle one-half of the pension which he enjoyed on his daughter, to be paid during her lifetime.
In the year 1798, the Elector appointed him his ambassador to the court of Great Britain; but on arriving in London, Rumford, much to his mortification, found that, as a British subject he could not hold that office. Shortly after this, in 1799, his friend and patron the Elector Charles Theodore died. Deeply grieved by the loss he had sustained, Rumford contemplated returning to his native country, in compliance with a formal invitation which he had received from the United States government. He was, however, led to change this design, and remain for several years in London, during which period he devoted the greatest portion of his time to the interests of the Royal Institution, of which he may be considered the founder. The objects of this institution, now one of the recognised scientific establishments of the world, and which can boast of having given employment to such men as Young, Davy, Brande, and Faraday, were "to diffuse the knowledge and facilitate the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and to teach by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments the application of science to the useful purposes of life." Such an institution was precisely the one which Rumford was qualified to superintend; and in its early history, the influence of his peculiar habits of thought is discernible, in the choice of subjects for investigation by the members. Rumford's name will ever be connected with the progress of science in England, from the establishment of this institution, and also from the foundation by him of a perpetual medal and prize in the gift of the Royal Society, for the reward of discoveries connected with light and heat.
During the latter portion of his life, Count Rumford, retaining an income of 1200l. a year from the Bavarian court, resided chiefly at Auteuil, a small villa near Paris. Here he was married again to the widow of the eminent French chemist Lavoisier, his former wife having died in 1792. Rumford's death took place at Auteuil, on the 21st of August, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. His only daughter by his first wife inherited the title of Countess of Rumford, with the continuation of her father's Bavarian pension. She married Cuvier the naturalist, and survived until a few years ago, forming a link between the age of Lavoisier and those of the middle of the nineteenth century.—Chambers' Miscellany, No. 161.—Encyclopædia Britannica, eighth edition.—Voyage de trois mois en Angleterre, en Ecosse, &c., par Marc-Auguste Pictet, F.R.S., &c. Geneva, 1802.
DANIEL RUTHERFORD, M.D.
Born November 3, 1749. Died November 15, 1819.
Daniel Rutherford was born at Edinburgh and educated at the University of his native city. He took his degree of M.D. in 1772, and in the Thesis which he published upon this occasion, entitled 'De Aëre Fixo,' he pointed out for the first time a new gaseous substance, since distinguished by the name of Azote or Nitrogen. On the 6th of May, 1777, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in a paper on Nitre, read before the Philosophical Society in 1778, he described, under the name of Vital Air, what is now called Oxygen gas.
On the death of Dr. John Hope in 1786, Rutherford was elected Professor of Botany and Keeper of the Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh, a duty which he discharged until the time of his death, in 1819, at the age of seventy.—Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. 3. May 1820.