² Hall, A. R., ‘Merton Revisited’, History of Science, II (1963), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

³ D. S. L. Cardwell, ‘Science in the Nineteenth Century’, ibid. pp. 140–5.

⁴ Kuhn, T., ‘The History of Science’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968), p. 76.Google Scholar

⁵ A useful but limited chronology of the Government Grant appears in the Record of the Royal Society (London, 1940), pp. 79–80, 185–91.Google Scholar

⁶ Second Report on Science Policy, Cmnd. 3420 (H.M.S.O., Oct. 1967), para. 18.

⁷ Minutes of the Government Grant Committee (hereafter abbreviated Mins.GGC), 16 Nov. 1849. The date of Russell's letter is given as 24 Oct. and Rosse's reply, 7 Nov. No copy of Russell's letter exists in the Royal Society's files, although an alleged copy was published in a review of the Eighth Report of the Devonshire Commission (see below, note 30) in Nature, XII, 19 Aug. 1875, 308.

⁸ See Stimson, Dorothy, Scientists and Amateurs: A History of the Royal Society (New York, 1948), p. 223;Google ScholarLyons, Sir Henry, The Royal Society, 1660–1940 (Cambridge, 1944), p. 266.Google Scholar

⁹ Brewster, Sir David, Presidential Address, Report of the British Association (1850), pp. xxxviii-xxxix.Google Scholar See Parker, Charles S., Sir Robert Peel (London, 1899), I, 162Google Scholar; III, 492 et passim.

¹⁰ Howarth, O. J. R., The British Association for the Advancement of Science: A Retrospect, 1831–1931 (London, 1931), pp. 152–9.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Report of the British Association (1849), p. xvii, with reference to the support of magnetical and meteorological observations.Google Scholar

¹² See Royal Society Manuscripts, H.S. 14.4.36, Russell to Herschel, 31 May 1839. No mention of the grant occurs in the published letters and speeches of Russell, or in his official biographies. His most recent biographer admits that ‘of science he knew little, and to call his mathematics elementary would be to over-praise him’. Tilby, A. Wyatt, Lord John Russell: A Study in Civil and Religious Liberty (London, 1930), p. 72.Google Scholar

¹³ Presidential Address, Report of the British Association (1850), p. xxxviii.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Presidential Address to the Royal Society, 30 Nov. 1850, Proc.R.Soc., V (1850), 1003–4.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Mins.GGC, 7 Mar. 1850.

¹⁶ Proc.R.Soc, V (1850), 1003.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Mins.GGC, 7 Mar. 1850.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Evidence of Sir Edward Sabine to the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (the Devonshire Commission), 10 May 1872. Mins. Evid., Parliamentary Papers (1874), vol. II, xxii, Q. 11,155; Q. 11,160–11,161.Google Scholar

²⁰ Mint.GGC, 27 June 1850.

²¹ Quoted in Huxley, Leonard, The Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley (London, 1900), I, 97Google Scholar, letter of 5 Mar. 1852. Huxley applied in May 1851 for assistance in publishing his Rattlesnake investigations. The Committee sympathized with his need, but declined his request on the grounds that the Admiralty should meet his costs.

¹² Presidential Address, 1851, Proc.R.Soc., VI, 102–3.Google Scholar

²³ Presidential Address to the Royal Society, 1852, Proc.R.Soc, VI, 235.Google Scholar

²⁴ See T1/5790B/4075/1853, C. R. Weld, Secretary, Royal Society to Secretary, Treasury, 25 Feb. 1853.

²⁵ Tyndall Papers (Royal Institution), VIII, fo. 1300, Sabine to Tyndall, 29 Mar. 1852.

²⁶ T1/5954B/17098/1855, Wilson to Wrottesley, 28 June 1855. See also Royal Society MSS, M.C.5.204, and Mins.GGC, 25 Oct. 1855.

²⁷ Broadlands MSS (Public Record Office), GC/AR/S, Argyll to Palmerston, n.d. (ca. July 1855).

²⁸ Palmerston Letterbooks, B.M. Add. MSS 48579, fo. 70, Palmerston to the Duke of Argyll, 4 July 1855.

²⁹ Hansard, , Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, vol. CXXIX, col. 1554.Google Scholar

³⁰ Royal Society MSS, M.C.5.206. Rosse to Secretary, Royal Society, 25 July 1855. The letter from Russell to Rosse, reproduced in Nature in 1876, read as follows: ‘As there are from time to time scientific discoveries and researches which cost money and assistance the students of science can often but ill afford, I am induced to consult your lordship, as President of the Royal Society, on the following suggestion:—I propose that at the close of the year the President and Council should point out to the First Lord of the Treasury a limited number of persons to whom the grant of a reward, or of a sum to defray the cost of experiments, might be of essential service. The whole sum which I could recommend the Crown to grant in the present year is £1,000, nor can I be certain that my successor would follow the same course; but I should wish to learn whether, in your lordship's opinion and that of your colleagues, the cause of science would be promoted by such grants.’

³¹ Royal Society MSS, M.M. 14.13. Rosse memorandum, n.e. (ca. early August 1855).

³² Presidential Address, 30 Nov. 1855, Proc.R.Soc., VII (1855), 565.Google Scholar

³³ Ti/5954/17098/1855, Wrottesley to Wilson, 28 July 1855. See also Mins.GGC, 25 Oct. 1855.

³⁴ An Account of the Appropriation of Grants … placed, by order of the Treasury at the Disposal of the Royal Society, between the years 1850 and 1854, Parliamentary Papers, 1854–5 (466), xxx, 605.

³⁵ Hansard, , Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, vol. CXXXIX, col. 1556.Google Scholar

³⁸ See T1/5709B/4075/1853 and Royal Society MSS M.C.5.217, Trevelyan to Wrottesley, 2 Nov. 1855. In 1866–7, separate votes for the Royal Society, the Geographical Society, the Academy of Music, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and for Scientific Works and Experiments were combined into a single vote for ‘Learned Societies’. In 1875–4, this designation was changed to ‘Learned Societies and Scientific Investigations’. See Treasury Blue Notes, T165/5. After 1890–1, the sum was referred to as the vote for ‘Scientific Investigations’.

³⁷ Palmerston Letterbooks, B.M. Add. MSS 48582, fo. 78, Palmerston to Brodie, 25 Jan. 1861.

³⁸ Evidence of Col. Alexander Strange to the Devonshire Commission, 8 May 1872, Mins.Evid., Parliamentary Papers (1874), II, xxii, Q. 11,042.Google Scholar

³⁹ When the Vote for 1861–2 was considered, an unspent balance of £1,000 from former years remained in the hands of the GGC. See Royal Society MSS, M.C.6.122. George Hamilton to P.R.S., 24 Jan. 1861.

⁴⁰ Ti/6174/21247/1858, Brodie to Trevelyan (n.d.): also references to letter from Trevelyan to Wrottesley, 28 Nov. 1857.

⁴¹ Mins.GGC, 19 June 1865 and 21 Mar. 1867.

⁴² Mins.GGC, 19 June 1866 and 21 Feb. 1867.

⁴³ Mins.GGC, 17 Feb. 1870.

⁴⁴ Quoted in Crowther, J. G., Statesman of Science (London, 1965), pp. 251–2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Howarth, , op. cit. pp. 267–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Mins.GGC, 17 Feb. 1876.

⁴⁷ Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (1875), Parliamentary Papers, 1875 [C.1298], xxviii, pp. 24, 47.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See MacLeod, R., ‘The Support of Victorian Science: The Endowment of Research Movement, 1868–1900’, Minerva 1971.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ T1/7522B/6048/1876, Minute, R. Lingen to W. H. Smith, 12 Apr. 1876. Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the property and income of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and of other Colleges and Halls therein (1873), Parliamentary Papers, 1873 (C.856), xxxvii.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ These included the Royal Astronomical Society, the Mathematical Society, the Chemical Society, the Zoological Society, the Linnaean Society, the Geological Society, the Physiological Society, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the General Medical Council, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, the British Association, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Irish Academy. Mins.GGC, 18 May 1876, Richmond and Gordon to P.R.S., 29 Apr. 1876.

⁵¹ Mins.GGC, 1 June 1876.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ To Lingen, the advantage of non-ministerial control of scientific research was clear only in a negative, restrictive sense. Only much later were the positive advantages of direct Treasury responsibility exploited by Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in helping to create the Development Commission and the Medical Research Committee (later the Medical Research Council). In 1915 this spirit was reflected again in the creation of the Advisory Council on Scientific and Industrial Research. See Schaffer, Bernard, A Consideration of the Use of Non-ministerial Organisation in the Administrative and Executive Work of Central Government, with special reference to the period 1832–1919 (University of London, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1956).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Mins.GGC, 1 June 1876; Norman Lockyer reprinted and correspondence between the Royal Society and the Government in an enthusiastic leader entitled ‘Government Aid to Scientific Research’, in Nature (29 06 1876), XIV, 185.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ T1/7522B/6048/1876, Lingen to W. H. Smith, 12 Apr. 1876.

⁵⁸ See MacLeod, R. and Andrews, E. K., ‘Scientific Careers of 1851 Exhibition Scholars’, Nature 218 (1968), 1011–1016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁷ Huxley, L., Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (London, 1918), II, 231, Hooker to Darwin, 22 Dec. 1876.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid. p. 235.

⁵⁹ Tyndall Papers (Royal Institution), vol. xi, fo. 644, Tyndall to Thomas Hirst, 17 Dec. 1876.

⁶⁰ The English Mechanic, 831 (1881), pp. 586–7.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Spottiswoode told Lord Cavendish that ‘as regards personal payments all the Fellows to whom he had spoken desire that the Society may be relieved of them altogether’. Spottiswoode admitted, however, ‘the difficulty of administering them otherwise than through the Society’ and agreed to lend his aid. T1/8008C/20599/1881, Spottiswoode to Cavendish, 14 Jan. 1881.

⁶² Mins.GGC, 7 Dec. 1876.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ Mins.GFC, 19 Feb. 1880; William Flower to Huxley, 27 Jan. 1880.

⁶⁵ Mins.GFC, 11 Jan. 1877. To help explain the difference between the obvious kinds of grant support, Norman Lockyer devoted the leading article in Nature of 1 Mar. 1877 to ‘Government Grants in Aid of Science’.

⁶⁶ Stokes Papers (University of Cambridge), ‘Proposals’, n.d. (ca. 1877).

⁶⁷ The records do not reveal the criteria of selection, but Hooker confirmed that no successful application requested more than £300. Presidential Address, 30 Nov. 1877; Proc.R.S., XXVI, 432.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Mins.GFC, 15 Feb. 1877, Norman MacLeod, Science and Art Department, to Secretary, Royal Society, 29 Jan. 1877.

⁶⁹ Mins.GFC, 14 June 1877, Memorials from J. H. Balfour, Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 27 Feb. 1877 and from John K. Ingram, Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy, 28 Apr. 1877 t o t n e Duke of Richmond and Gordon.

⁷⁰ Mins.GFC, 30 Nov. 1877, Huxley to Secretary, Science and Art Department, 5 July 1877.

⁷¹ Thomas Robinson (F.R.S. 1856), the astronomer, received four grants; Edward Cooper (F.R.S. 1853), the astronomer, received four; Maxwell Simpson received seven; and five others received one apiece.

⁷² Mins.GFC, 30 Nov. 1877.

⁷³ Proc.R.Soc., IX (1858), 508.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Proc.R.Soc., XXIII (1874), 51.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Gore, George, The Scientific Basis of National Progress, including that of Morality (London, 1882), p. 209.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ ‘Report on the Government Fund’, Mins.GFC, 27 Oct. 1881.

⁷⁷ Ibid.

⁷⁸ T165/5, Committee of Council on Education to Secretary, Treasury, 9 Dec. 1881; Cavendish to the Vice-President of the Council, 23 Jan. 1882.

⁷⁹ T1/8008C/20599/1881, MacLeod to Cavendish, 9 Dec. 1881.

⁸⁰ Lord Frederick Cavendish (1836–82), second son of the seventh Duke of Devonshire and a distant relative of Henry Cavendish, the chemist. Private secretary to Gladstone, and financial secretary to the Treasury under Gladstone, April 1880-May 1882; succeeded W. E. Forster as chief secretary for Ireland in May 1882, and was assassinated in Phoenix Park, Dublin, the same day.

⁸¹ T1/8008C/20599/1881, Lingen to Cavendish, 2 Feb. 1882.

⁸² See Levi, L., ‘Our National Expenditure’, Fortnightly Review, XLII (1887), 876.Google Scholar

⁸³ T1/8008C/20599/1881, Lingen to Cavendish, 3 Feb. 1882.

⁸⁴ Ibid.

⁸⁵ Mins.GFC, 7 Mar. 1882; Cavendish to P.R.S., 20 Feb. 1882.

⁸⁶ See Mins.GGC, 7 Mar. 1882 and Spottiswoode's Presidential Address, 30 Nov. 1882, Proc.R.Soc, XXXIV, 307.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Mins.GGC, 25 May 1882.

⁸⁸ Presidential Address, 1 Dec. 1884, Proc.R.Soc., XXXVII, 440–1.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ In 1880, Spottiswoode told the Society that ten of the ordinary members of the Council retired every year, six were removed according to seniority and four were removed for poor attendance. ‘It was’, he said, ‘rare for any Fellow, except the President, the Secretary or the Treasurer to remain in office for over two years.’ Proc.R.Soc, XXXI (1880), 79Google Scholar. But those officers who were among the most active members of the Society were naturally found most frequently on the GGC.

⁹⁰ Royal Society MSS, MC.12.292, Stokes to Secretary, Royal Society, 23 Dec. 1882, Lingen to P.R.S., 1 Jan. 1883.

⁹¹ T1/8222B/17991/1885, Barrington to M. Ridley, n.d. (ca. Nov. 1885).

⁹² Ibid.

⁹³ T1/8222B/19931/1885, Minutes, Barrington to Ridley and Ridley to Barrington, 28 Dec. 1885.

⁹⁴ Thus Welby once minuted, ‘My Lords do not desire me to press the Royal Society for more detailed proof of expenditure than will be sufficient to satisfy the ordinary conditions of a grant-in-aid’. Royal Society MSS, M.C.14.39, Welby to P.R.S., 7 May 1885. Ti/8377i/9i35/i888, Welby to Secretary, Royal Society, 5 Oct. 1888. Welby gave the Society greater latitude in handling its funds. As George Hamilton, a senior Treasury official, casually admitted, ‘our approval has practically become a formality’. Hamilton to Welby, 10 Aug. 1888.

⁹⁵ T1/8377A/7532/1889, Draft, Bergne to P.R.S., 19 Jan. 1889.

⁹⁶ Mins.GGC, 21 June 1894, Foster to Secretary, Treasury, 26 June 1894.

⁹⁷ T1/8834B/10050/1894, Minute, Bergne to Secretary, Treasury, 26 June 1894.

⁹⁸ The Times, 2 Dec. 1893.

⁹⁹ Mins.GGC, 19 May 1886.

¹⁰⁰ Presidential Address, Proc.R.Soc, A, 89, p. 461.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ See The Year Book of the Royal Society of London (London, 1967).Google Scholar

¹⁰² Mins.GGC, 5 July 1888.

¹⁰³ The Times, 2 Dec. 1893.

¹⁰⁴ Of the 938 men, overall, 381 (40·6%) were at the time of the award Fellows of the Royal Society; of the 2,316 grants, 1,330 (5·79%) went to Fellows alone. Therefore, about 41% of the successful applicants received 58·9% of the awards. On average, successful Fellows received about 3·5 awards apiece while outsiders received about 1·5 apiece.

¹⁰⁵ In 1919, the Treasury increased the Grant to £5,000; in 1936, to £7,000; £21,000 in 1946 and to £30,000 in 1955. In 1967 it stood at £169.000. The Yearbook of the Royal Society of London (London, 1968), p. 125.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Sorby, H., ‘Unencumbered Research: A Personal Experience’, in Essays on the Endowment of Research (London, 1876), p. 174.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ The Times, 1 Dec. 1883.

¹⁰⁸ Mins.GGC. 21 June 1894.

¹⁰⁹ Cf. Cardwell, D. S. L., ‘Science in the Nineteenth Century’, History of Science, II (1963), 144.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ By 1900, the income of all its private research funds combined did not exceed £1.400 and most of the other learned societies could spare little from their income for the active encouragement of science. The Record of the Royal Society (London, 1940), p. 78.Google Scholar Reviewing the position in 1945, the Royal Society had no doubt ‘that if more funds had been available, and if the conditions of grant had been broadened, many more applications would have been received and much other important work could have been accomplished’. Report on the Needs of Research in Fundamental Science after the War (London, 1945), p. 17.Google Scholar

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¹¹² Huggins, Sir William, The Royal Society; or Science in the State and in the Schools (London, 1906), p. 64.Google Scholar

¹¹³ The Times, 1 Dec. 1892.

¹¹⁴ Proc.R.Soc. A, 82 (1908), p. 3.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ The Times, 1 Dec. 1892.