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Chelsea College of Art & Design has its origins in the South-Western Polytechnic, which was opened at Manresa Road, Chelsea in 1895 to provide scientific and technical education to Londoners. Day and evening classes for men and women were held in domestic economy, mathematics, engineering, natural science, art and music. Art was taught from the beginning of the Polytechnic, and included design, weaving, embroidery and electrodeposition. Instruction in design especially adapted to various industries was an early feature of teaching in art at Chelsea. The South-Western Polytechnic became Chelsea Polytechnic in 1922 and taught a growing number of registered students of the University of London.

At the beginning of the 1930s the interests of the school of art began to widen, including courses in craft training. Teaching began to cover commercial design, with courses including package design, block-printed fabrics, knotted rugs, painted furniture and typographical lay-out introduced between 1931 and 1938. Fine art courses appeared, with a sculpture department founded under the Principal, H S Williamson. Notable teachers in the School of Art have included Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Lawrence Gowing, Norbert Lynton and Patrick Caulfield. On 1 January 1957 the college was designated a College of Advanced Technology, and became known as Chelsea College of Science and Technology. The School of Art was separated and became independent. In 1964 the School of Art merged with the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art to create a new Chelsea School of Art in purpose built premises at Manresa Road, directly managed by London County Council. Courses were reorganised leading to the new Diploma in Art and Design in Painting and in Graphic Design and Sculpture. Under the first head of the new institution, Lawrence Gowing, an option programme was introduced encompassing workshops on experimental music, poetry, artists' books, psychoanalysis, philosophy and anthropology. A basic design course pioneered by Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton developed to become the basis of the College's foundation course. An MA in Fine Art was introduced in 1974.

Hammersmith College of Art and Building was founded in 1891 by Francis Hawke, with the establishment of a few evening classes to prepare students for science and art certificates. In 1904 the school was taken over by London County Council and a new building erected at Lime Grove, which opened with an extended curriculum in 1908. A trade school for girls was erected on the same site in 1914. From the outset the College had a tradition of training and education in art closely associated with the building professions and craft. A new building was opened in 1930. Hammersmith College merged with Chelsea College of Art in 1975.

In January 1986 Chelsea School of Art became a constituent college of the London Institute, formed by the Inner London Education Authority associating its art schools and specialist colleges of printing, fashion and distributive trades into a collegiate structure. In 1989 the School was renamed Chelsea College of Art & Design. New courses since 1989 include a BA in design, an MA in History and Theory of Modern Art, and an MA in the Theory and Practice of Public Art and Design for the Environment.

Inventory magazine was first published in 1995 by an artists' collective of 3 ex-Chelsea MA students: Paul Claydon, Adam Scrivener and Damian Abbott. They published the first issue of the magazine whilst studying at the Chelsea.

Born Hanover, 1887; attended the Akademie der Künste, Dresden, 1909-1914; began military service, 1914; studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule, Hanover; influened by Kandinsky and the Dadaists began to experiment with abstract pictures in 1918 using collages, one piece had the letters MERZ and he subsequently described his assemblages as Merz; first exhibition, 1918; began his first Merzbau, a huge construction nearly filling a house (destroyed 1943); participated in the Weimar Dada Congress, 1922; edited Merz magazine, 1923-1932; first performance of Ur-Sonata, non-semantic sound collage, 1924; worked as a commercial designer and typographer for several companies, 1920s; a founder of 'circle of new commercial designers', 1927; member of Abstraction-Création, 1932; emigrated to Norway, 1937; made his second Merzbau (destroyed 1951); escaped Norway to Britain, 1940; began a third Merzbau at Ambleside, Cumbria (unfinished and moved to Newcastle University, 1965); died, 1948.
Publications include: Die Blume Anna. Die neue Anna Blume. Eine Gedichtsammlung aus den Jahren 1918-1922 (Berlin, [1923]); Merz FOLIO poems translated by Jerome Rothenburg and Pierre Joris (Morning Star Publications, Edinburgh, 1991); Die Scheuche. Märchen. typographisch gestaltet with Käte Steinitz (1975) facsimile reprint of Hannover, Aposs-Verlag, 1925.

The Women's International Art Club was founded in Paris in 1900, as the Paris International Art Club. At this time there was very little opportunity for women to exhibit their art work, and as an exhibiting society the Club was instrumental in bringing the work of women sculptors and painters to the notice of the general public. The first exhibition under its new name was held at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1900. The Club had an annual exhibition of paintings and sculptures in London until it closed in 1976, and smaller exhibitions were also shown outside London and abroad. The foreign sections of the Club also contributed work to the exhibition, including the Italian, Scottish, Dutch, American, French and Greek sections.

Members' works were submitted for selection by a selection committee, comprising officials of the club and two outsiders chosen from the artistic community, usually art critics, gallery owners etc. In the 1950s and 1960s the club continued to flourish, encouraging young experimental artists and organising exhibitions from abroad. In the 1970s the waning of interest in large exhibitions and rising costs of gallery space led to the closure of the club in 1976. Exhibitors included Gwen Barnard, Eileen Agar, Elizabeth Frink, Lee Krasner and Gwen John.

Born, London, 1943; worked at Ealing School of Art, 1962-1963; taught at Chelsea School of Art, 1960s; editor and publisher of Control Magazine, 1965-2002; Director, The Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1972-1973; D.A.A.D. Fellowship, West Berlin, 1979-1980; Convenor of the Symposium, 'Art Creating Society', Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1990; solo and group exhibitions, 1964-2000, in the UK and Europe. Publications include: Art and social function. three projects (Latimer New Dimensions, London, 1976).

Charles William Andrews (1866-1924), a 2nd class assistant in the Department of Geology, was given special leave by the Museum Trustees to visit Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The Island had been annexed by the Crown in 1888, the year after a visit by Captain Pelham Aldrich in HMS Egeria, and it was leased to the Christmas Island Phosphate Company for commercial development in 1897. Sir John Murray, one of the directors of the Company, proposed and financed an expedition to study the island in advance of its commercial exploitation. Andrews left England in May 1897, and arrived on Christmas Island on 29 July. He remained on the island for ten months, studying the geology and collecting rocks and minerals, plants and animals. He spent one month on the Cocos-Keeling atoll on his way home, and finally returned to duty at the Museum in August 1898. Andrews' collections were worked on by a number of scientists at the Museum, including R Bowdler Sharpe (birds), G A Boulenger (reptiles), A G Butler, G F Hampson and Lord Walsingham (butterflies and moths) and W F Kirby (other insect groups). The results of their work was published in 1900, along with a geological report by Andrews himself, as a Museum monograph.

The Department of Botany has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions, which was set up at the founding of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). The botanical collection at this period consisted almost entirely of the Sloane herbarium.

In 1827 the Museum acquired the herbarium of Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), and with it, the services of Robert Brown (1773-1858), as 'Keeper of the Banksian Botanical Collection'. In 1835 the Sloane and Banksian collections were amalgamated to form a Botanical Branch of the Department of Natural History, and in 1856 the branch was given the status of a department, with Robert Brown as the first Keeper, and a staff of four.

Under succeeding keepers the collections held by the Department increased in size and scope, and by the time George Murray (1858-1911) retired in 1905 there was a staff of 13. A major reorganisation took place in the mid 1930s when the complement increased to 23, and the department was divided into six cryptogamic sections and five sections devoted to flowering plants, together with the library and the Keeper's Office. The Department was severely damaged during the war, and did not fully recover until the early 1960s.

Over the years the relationship of the Department with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has been scrutinised many times, on both financial and scientific grounds. Government enquiries were held in 1860, 1871, 1900 and 1960, and all recommended that the two institutions should remain independent, with the last leading to the 'Morton Agreement', which set out a division of accession and research activities.

By 1965 the Department was responsible for huge herbaria collections, and was active in research on the floras of tropical Africa, Europe, the West Indies and the Far East. The research was supported by the departmental library, which was rich in historic treasures as well as contemporary literature. The Department was also responsible, in conjunction with the exhibition staff, for displays in the botany gallery. Staff numbered 23, who between them saw to nearly 3,000 visitors, accessioned nearly 40,000 specimens, and published 30 or more papers each year.

The Department of Mineralogy has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the foundation of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1837 the Department was divided into three branches, of which Mineralogy and Geology was one, and in 1856 the branch became a Department in its own right, almost immediately being divided into the two departments of Geology and Mineralogy. The first Keeper of Mineralogy was M H N Story-Maskelyne (1823-1911), a lecturer and later Professor at Oxford, a Member of Parliament, and an agriculturalist and country gentleman. Thomas Davies (1837-1932) joined the Department as an attendant in 1858 and took charge of the rock collection. A chemical laboratory was provided in Great Russell Street in 1867, and Walter Flight (1841-1885) was appointed analyst.

By the time the Department moved to South Kensington in 1881, it had a staff of ten, and was responsible for a huge collection of rocks, minerals and meteorites. In South Kensington the Department initially developed around the collections of minerals, meteorites and rocks. Cataloguing and curation of the mineral collection, with the development of crystallographic and chemical techniques involved a large number of staff, including Lazarus Fletcher (1854-1921), Leonard J Spencer (1870-1959) and Jessie M Sweet (1901-1979). The meteorite collection was looked after by successive keepers, including Fletcher, George T Prior (1862-1936) and W Campbell Smith (1887-1988), while the rocks were worked on by Prior, Campbell Smith and Stanley E Ellis (1904-1986). The chemical laboratory, staffed by Prior, Max H Hey (1904-19..) and Alan A Moss (1912-1990), was involved in work on all these three collections. Many staff worked in more than one of these areas, and the Department was not formally divided into sections until the 1950s.

Two important developments came with the appointment of Frederick A Bannister (1901-1970) in 1927 to develop X-ray crystallography, and the formation of an Oceanography Section under John D Wiseman in 1935, following the transfer of the John Murray Collection from the Department of Zoology. New methods of rapid mineral analysis were developed in the 1950s, and the department's first electron microprobe was delivered in 1964.

By 1975 the Department had a staff of 37 and was divided into nine sections, including General Mineralogy, Petrology, Meteorites, Oceanography, Chemistry and the Departmental Library.

The Department of Palaeontology has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the foundation of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Carl Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1837 the Department was divided into three branches, of which Mineralogy and Geology was one, and in 1856 the branch became a Department in its own right, almost immediately being divided into the two departments of Geology and Mineralogy. The first Keeper of Geology was George Robert Waterhouse (1810-1888), an entomologist, who had joined the Museum in 1843 from the Zoological Society. He was succeeded in 1880 by Henry Woodward (1832-1921), who thus had the task of supervising the move from Bloomsbury to South Kensington. By the time Woodward retired in 1901 the Department had a staff of 15.

Through the 1920s and 1930s the collections were divided into 15 units, each presided over by an Assistant Keeper or an Unofficial Worker. Subdivision of the Department into sections developed during this period, and was firmly established when the Museum got back to normal after the Second World War. An Anthropology Section, which spanned the departments of Geology and Zoology was set up in 1954. It was given the status of a Sub-Department in 1959, and was made part of Palaeontology the following year.

In 1956 the title of the Department was changed from Geology to Palaeontology.
By 1956 the Department was responsible for one of the largest and most important collections of palaeontological material in the world, and was an international centre for research in both stratigraphic and taxonomic palaeontology. Research work was supported by a rich departmental library. Staff numbered 63.

The Museum has been a publisher throughout its history, producing scholarly monographs and catalogues, expedition reports, periodicals, study guides, popular guidebooks, notes for collectors, posters, wallcharts and postcards. A bookshop opened for the sale of guidebooks and postcards in 1921, and was opened on Sundays after consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Principal Trustee. From the 1930s editing was the responsibility of the Keepers, permission to publish was recommended by the Trustees' Publications Sub-Committee, and arrangements for printing and the preparation of illustrations was in the hands of the Museum Accountant. When Richard J Drumm (1889-1965) retired as Accountant in 1954 he was retained as a part-time Publications Officer.

At the same time a review of publications policy led to preparation of a series of popular handbooks in addition to the Museum's scholarly output. Arthur E Baker (b 1910) was appointed the first full-time Publications Officer in 1962, and was responsible for liaison between the science departments and the Director on one hand, and printers and illustrators on the other. By 1967 there was a publications staff of ten, who included clerical officers, printers and retail sales staff. The Section was incorporated into the newly formed Department of Public Services in 1975.

The British Museum was founded in 1753 by Act of Parliament (26 George II c.22), and a Board of Trustees established. The Board consisted of Crown and Government nominees as well as elected members and representatives of the families of the founders and benefactors of the Museum. The Board met fortnightly at first, and then from 1761 four times a year at what were called 'General Meetings', which became purely formal. The Board delegated the day-to-day business of the Museum to a Standing Committee, which was established in 1755. Sub-Committees were set up by the Standing Committee from time to time as the need arose. The Chairman of the Board was always one of the three 'Principal Trustees': the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons.

From 1871 extracts from the Standing Committee minutes relating to the natural history departments were copied for the use of the departments (DF902), and from 1884, once the departments had moved, the Standing Committee met at South Kensington to transact business connected with the British Museum (Natural History) (DF900). General Meetings of the Board were likewise held at this Museum from time to time, and their minutes are held here, together with the minutes of the sub-committees concerned with natural history (DF901).
In 1963 the British Museum (Natural History) was separated from the British Museum by Act of Parliament, and a newly constituted Board of Trustees met for the first time on 11 October 1963.

The Ray Society was founded in 1844 by a group of British Naturalists which included Thomas Bell, George Johnston and Richard Owen, and it commemorates the great English naturalist John Ray (1627-1705).
The purpose of the society as then stated, was 'the promotion of Natural History by the printing of original works in Zoology and Botany; of new editions of works of established merit; of rare tracts and manuscripts; and of translations and reprints of foreign works; which are generally inaccessible.' The main object of the society remains the publication of learned books on natural history, with special emphasis on the British fauna and flora.
In its earlier days, the society was heavily reliant upon foreign, and in particular German research and material, which was regarded as the leading authority in the fields of Zoology and Botany. In an age when the advancement of science was very much in vogue, the society became an instant success, and within a year it had enrolled some 650 members. It reached a peak of 868 in 1847.
The officers of the society consist of a President, six Vice-Presidents, four Honorary Vice-Presidents, with a Treasurer, Foreign Secretary, Secretary and Assistant Secretary. Council meets twice a year.

In the eighteenth century the office of the Clerk of the Acts was responsible for drawing up Navy Board contracts, although it was noted in 1786 that it was the duty of the two assistants to the Surveyor of the Navy 'to examine and correct all contracts for building and repairing in the merchant yards'. In 1796 the Secretary's Office continued to draw up the contracts, but in 1803 an Order-in-Council created a Contract Office with two clerks from the Secretary's office. This office continued after the abolition of the Navy Board in 1832. See Bernard Pool, Navy Board contracts 1660-1832 (London, 1966).

Commissioners for the care of sick and hurt seamen were first appointed during the Dutch wars. Between 1692 and 1702 and between 1713 and 1715 their duties were performed by the Commissioners of the Register Office and from 1715 until 1717 by two Commissioners of the Navy Board. One Commissioner each from the Sick and Hurt Board and the Navy Board then conducted the business from the Navy Office until 1740, when at least two Commissioners of the Sick and Hurt Board were appointed during peace and up to five in wartime. This Board appointed ships' surgeons and their assistants, ensured that they were equipped and supplied with medicines, superintended the dispensers who issued medicines, supervised the furnishing and equipment of hospitals and hospital ships, examined and cleared accounts and made returns of the sick and wounded to the Admiralty and Navy Boards. In 1743 the Board was also made responsible for the care of prisoners of war. In 1796 this duty was transferred to the Transport Board which in 1806 also became responsible for caring for the sick and wounded seamen.

Various

Edward Bates (d 1896) spent a number of years in India where he established himself as a merchant in Bombay. In 1848 he left this business in charge of an agent, returned to England and opened an office in Liverpool as an importer of Indian produce. He also began a regular service to Bombay with chartered vessels, and in 1850 he started building up a fleet of sailing ships. Trading was soon extended to include first Calcutta and then the Far East and, when the gold rush began, passenger ships sailed direct to Australia and returned via India or South America. In 1870 the firm was renamed Edward Bates and Sons. Edward went to live in Hampshire and the eldest of his four sons, Edward Percy Bates (d 1899), took over the management of the Liverpool office. The next year Edward became an MP and a regular attender at the House; in 1886 he received a baronetcy. In earlier years Bates had bought steamers and converted them into sailing vessels, but from 1870 the partners began adding steamers to their fleet. They continued to acquire sailing ships as well up to 1884, but in 1886 they had a steel-screw steamer built to their own design, which heralded a change of direction to a smaller number of large modern steamships engaged in general tramping. The Bombay office was closed in 1898 and the business there amalgamated with Killick Nixon and Co. When Edward Percy Bates died in 1899 his son Edward Bertram Bates (d 1903) succeeded to the title and the management of the family business. He in turn was succeeded by Percy Elly Bates (1879-1946), who in 1910 joined the board of the Cunard Company. In 1911 he and his two brothers joined the board of Thomas and John Brocklebank and exchanged their largest vessel for half of the Brocklebank family's shares. By 1916 Sir Percy Elly Bates was running the Commercial Services branch of the Ministry of Shipping and his two brothers had gone to the war; as there was no one in the office to manage their ships they sold them to Brocklebank's. This was the end of their shipowning activities, but the partnership of Edward Bates and Sons continued in business as merchants and private bankers. In 1916 Bates and Brocklebank's both moved their offices into the new Cunard Building and in 1919 Cunard bought all the shares in the Brocklebank Line owned by the Brocklebank and Bates families. Sir Percy Bates became deputy chairman of the Cunard Shipping Co in 1922 and was chairman from 1930 until his death in 1946. His brother Denis (1886-1959) became chairman of Brocklebank's when Sir Aubrey Brocklebank died in 1929. The remaining Brocklebank shares (owned by the Anchor Line) were bought by Cunard in 1940.

Charles Bell was born in Edinburgh, in 1774. He received his medical education from the University of Edinburgh between 1792-1799, attending courses on anatomy, botany, chemistry, and the practice of medicine and clinical lectures at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He also assisted his brother John, also a surgeon, teaching anatomy and surgery in the Edinburgh extramural school. Charles Bell had a talent for drawing and developed his skills as an artist during this time. While still a student in 1798, he published a System of Dissections, illustrated by his own drawings. He was elected a fellow of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1799, and practised at the Edinburgh Infirmary. He published The Anatomy of the Brain, Explained in a Series of Engravings, in 1802. He left Edinburgh for London in 1804. He married Marion Shaw in 1811 and used the money from the dowry to buy a share in the Hunterian School of Medicine, in Great Windmill Street. He was appointed surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1814, and became a member of The Royal College of Surgeons of London. He lectured as Senior Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons of London in 1824, and then became a member of Council. He was knighted in 1831. He was appointed Professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology at the London University in 1827. When the University Medical School finally opened in 1828, Bell gave the inaugural speech. There were some difficulties in the new Medical School and in 1830, Bell left to help establish a medical school at the Middlesex Hospital where he conducted his clinical lectures. The school opened in 1835, and Bell was to teach surgery and anatomy. However, at this time, Bell was offered the post of Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh University, which he accepted, returning to Edinburgh in 1836. In 1840 he made a three month tour of Italy to view works of art for one of his publications. He died in 1842.

John Bell was born in Edinburgh, in 1763. Aged 17 he was apprenticed to Alexander Wood, the leading surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and attended the lectures of Joseph Black, William Cullen and Alexander Monro secundus. He was admitted freeman surgeon apothecary by the Royal College and Corporation of Surgeon Apothecaries of Edinburgh, in 1786. He began his own practice and also his own programme of lectures. He opened his own lecture theatre in Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh, in 1790. He published a series of textbooks on surgical anatomy and emphasised the practical experience of surgical techniques in training. He had a talent for drawing and produced his own illustrations for his The Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles and Joints (1793-1794) and Discourses on the Nature and Cure of Wounds (1793-1795). He died in Rome in 1825.

Thomas Appleby was a surgeon at Castleton in the early 19th century. Further biographical information is currently unavailable.

George Ramsey Rodd was a surgeon who resided in Hampstead. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1807-1827. No further biographical information is currently available.

Alexander Henry Bartlett was born in Ipswich in 1800. He became a student at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals, where he was dresser to Sir Astley Cooper in 1822-1823. After qualifying he settled in Ipswich, where he was first elected to the Dispensary. He was appointed Surgeon to the Gaol in 1825. He had an important share in the establishment of the East Suffolk Hospital, and headed the poll at the election of surgeons in 1836. He served on the active staff of the Hospital for forty years and then became Consulting Surgeon. He died in 1887.

Edmund Belfour was born in 1790. He became secretary to The Royal College of Surgeons of England at age 21, taking over from his father, Okey Belfour. Edmund Belfour held this post for fifty years, and died on in 1865 at his residence in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.

Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster grammar school, the University of Edinburgh, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a comparative anatomist, a palaeontologist, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and superintendent of the Natural History collections of the British Museum. He died in 1892.

William Wadd was born in 1776 He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School from 1784, and was apprenticed to James Earle in 1797, becoming a surgeon's pupil at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was admitted a member of The Royal College of Surgeons in 1801. He practised and resided in Basinghall St, London. At The Royal College of Surgeons, Wadd was a member of the council in 1824, and he was appointed a member of the court of examiners in 1829. He was appointed one of the surgeons-extraordinary to the Prince Regent in 1817, and then surgeon-extraordinary to George IV in 1821. Wadd was a fellow of the Linnean Society and an associate of the Societe de Medecine of Paris. He died in 1829.

A new hospital was built in Tooting by the Metropolitan Asylums Board after a resurgence of Scarlet Fever in 1893. This was the 400 bed Fountain Fever Hospital, designed by Thomas W Aldwinckle, and built in nine weeks.

Most of the buildings were single-storey structures with timber frames, covered with boarding, felt and corrugated iron. On the inside, the walls were lined with boarding and asbestos on plaster. A porter's lodge stood at the west of the site at the entrance on Tooting Grove. It contained a gate office, waiting room, and lavatory, with discharging rooms and bathrooms to the rear. There were separate entrances at each side - the 'infected' one leading to the receiving wards, and the 'non-infected' one leading to the administration buildings and stores.

There were 8 ward blocks, arranged in two rows of 4, and all linked by a central covered way. Each block contained 24 beds, plus a scullery, attendant's bedroom and staff WC, linen room, and patients' bathroom. Two further isolation blocks were situated at the north-west edge of the site. The 'temporary' ward blocks were still in use in 1930. There was also accommodation for nursing staff, domestic staff and male servants, as well as workshops and a mortuary.

In 1911-1912, the hospital was redesignated as a mental hospital and became used for the accommodation of the lowest grade of severely subnormal children, becoming the Fountain Mental Hospital. In 1930, the administration of the hospital passed to the London County Council who retained it as a hospital for mentally defective children. From 1948 the hospital was known as the Fountain Hospital. It was demolished in 1963 and the site is now occupied by St George's Hospital.

Thomas Brushfield was a surgeon, and formerly the Senior Medical Officer at the Fountain Mental Hospital. This collection was compiled during his work there between 1914-1927, and is also known as the Brushfield Amentia Collection.

Charles Alexandre Lesueur was born in 1778, the son of a French naval officer. Aged 23, he sailed from his home at Le Havre, France, on an expedition to Australia and Tasmania. During the next 4 years, Lesueur and the naturalist François Péron collected over 100,000 zoological specimens representing 2,500 new species, and Lesueur made 1,500 drawings. Lesueur met William Maclure in 1815, and was persuaded to join him in Philadelphia where he lived until the end of 1825. Lesueur travelled on Maclure's 'Boatload of Knowledge' to Mount Vernon, Indiana, and then a few miles on to New Harmony. He remained there until 1837, when he returned to France. He was appointed curator of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle du Havre in 1845, which was created to house his many drawings and paintings. He died in 1846.

Frederick Christian Lewis was born in London, in 1779. He was primarily a printmaker and engraver, and his prints were highly valued by his contemporaries. He became engraver of drawings to Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, George IV, William IV, and Queen Victoria. He also made tours in Europe producing various etchings. He died in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1856.

Biographical information regarding B A Vitry was unavailable at the time of compilation.

Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.

Whitlock Nicholl was born in Treddington, Worcester, in 1786. He grew up with his uncle, the Reverend John Nicholl. He was placed with Mr Bevan in 1802, a medical practitioner at Cowbridge in Glamorganshire. He entered as a pupil at St George's hospital, in 1806. He attended the lectures of Mr Wilson, Dr Hooper, Dr Pearson, Dr John Clarke, and Sir Everard Home. He was appointed house surgeon at the Lock Hospital, in 1808, and admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1809. He returned to Cowbridge and entered into partnership with his former master, Mr Bevan, and then succeeded him as physician on his retirement. He was created Doctor of Medicine by Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1816, and was admitted an extra Licentiate of the College of Physicians, the same year. He was created Doctor of Medicine by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1817, through the interest of his relation Sir John Nicholl. He had a successful practice in Ludlow. He matriculated from Glasgow in 1825, and attained the M D in 1826. He then moved to London, where he was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1836. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1830. He died in 1838.

Sir Anthony Carlisle was born in Stillington, Durham, in 1768. He was sent to his maternal uncle, Anthony Hubback, in York, for medical training. Following his uncle's death Carlisle transferred to a Durham surgeon, William Green, in 1784. Carlisle went to London in the late 1780s, and attended lectures by John Hunter, Matthew Baillie and others. He became the house pupil of Henry Watson, and on Watson's death succeeded him to the post of surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, in 1793. He began offering lectures on surgery in 1794, hoping to establish a formal medical school there. He advocated the systematic collection and publishing of hospital statistics. He was active in securing the collections of John Hunter for the Royal College of Surgeons, during the 1790s. He was one of the original members of the College in 1800. He sat on Council and the Court of Examiners. He served as Vice-President and twice as President (1829 and 1839). He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1820. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. With William Nicholson, he electrolyzed water into its constituent gases and communicated this to the Royal Society in 1800. He secured the post of Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1808, and also studied art there. He was appointed surgeon to the Duke of Gloucester and then surgeon-extraordinary to the Prince Regent (later King George IV). He was investigated but exonerated for three cases of neglect in 1838. He opposed male midwives on the grounds of modesty and incompetence. He died in 1840.

An ola is a leaf or strip of a leaf of the palmyra, traditionally used in Southern India and Sri Lanka for writing on. It is also a letter or document written on such a leaf.

The Sinhalese are the native inhabitants of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon).

Richard Phillips Jones was born in c 1797. He was educated at St George's Hospital. He entered as a 12 month pupil of Sir Everard Home, in 1817. He became MRCS in 1819. He obtained his MD from Glasgow, in 1821. He was a member of a Medical Board attending those dying of cholera in Wales, in 1832. He was appointed Honorary Physician to the Chester General Infirmary, in 1835. He became Physician to the Denbighshire General Dispensary and Asylum for Recovery of Health. He was appointed JP for the City of Chester and County of Denbigh, in 1845. He was Mayor of Chester, 1846-1848 and 1852-1853. He became FRCS in 1858. He also became Consulting Physician and Honorary Governor of the Chester General Infirmary, in 1861. He died in 1867.

Russell Claude Brock was born in 1903. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Guy's Medical School, with an arts scholarship, at the age of 17. He won the Treasurer's Gold Medal both in medicine and in surgery, and the Golding Bird Medal in pathology. He also won the BMA Prize Essay in 1926. After qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma he sat the London MBBS examination a year later and obtained honours in medicine, surgery and anatomy. He became Hunterian Professor in 1928, and was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in 1929. He joined the department of Evarts Graham in St Louis, from which he developed his interest in thoracic surgery. On his return he became surgical registrar and tutor at Guy's, and a research fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain, in 1932. He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1935, and in the same year was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon to the London County Council. He was appointed to the staff of Guy's in 1936, and the Brompton Hospital, and Surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. During World War Two he was thoracic surgeon and regional advisor in thoracic surgery to the EMS. After the war he was elected to the Council of the College. He served successively from 1949-1966 as a member of Council, Vice-President and finally President, 1963-1966. During this period he delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1957, and the Hunterian Oration in 1960. After relinquishing the Presidency he became a member of the Court of Patrons and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian Collection. On retirement from his hospital posts in 1968, he continued to devote himself to his private patients and to his researches as Director of the College's Department of Surgical Sciences which he had promoted while President. He was active in promoting the Private Pensions Plan, of which he was Chairman, 1967-1977, and President in 1978. He received twenty or more honorary Fellowships and Doctorates from the British Isles, Europe and North and South America, as well as numerous prizes and gold medals. He was President of the Thoracic Society in 1951, President of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1958 and President of the Medical School of London in 1968. He died in 1980.

Sir John Bland-Sutton was born in Enfield Highway, in 1855. He was educated at the local school, where he acted for two years as pupil teacher with the intention of becoming a schoolmaster. He was dtermined to become a doctor as soon as he had the money necessary to pay the fees. He attended the private school of anatomy kept by Thomas Cooke, FRCS, off Mecklenburgh Square. Here he learnt and taught anatomy, until he could afford the fees at the Middlesex Hospital. He entered there as a student in 1878, and was immediately appointed Prosector of Anatomy. He became junior demonstrator in 1879; senior demonstrator in 1883; and lecturer from 1886-1896. He was Murchison scholar at the Royal College of Physicians in 1884. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1886, with the proviso that he should remain in London during the months of August and September, when the senior surgeons were accustomed to take their annual holiday. He became assistant surgeon to the Hospital for Women in 1886, and was promoted to surgeon six months later. He became surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital from 1905-1920, when he resigned and was made consulting surgeon. At the Royal College of Surgeons he won the Jacksonian prize in 1892; he gave the Erasmus Wilson lectures in 1885-1887 and 1889-1891; he was elected a member of the Pathological Society in 1882 and served on the Council of the Society from 1887-1890; he was an examiner in anatomy for the Fellowship in 1895; he was a Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology from 1888-1889, and gave a lecture as Hunterian Professor in 1916; he was Bradshaw Lecturer in 1917; and Hunterian Orator in 1923. Elected to the Council in 1910, he was Vice-President in 1918-1920, and was President for the years 1923-1925. In 1927 he was elected a trustee of the Hunterian collection. During World War One he was gazetted major, RAMC(T) in 1916, and was attached to the 3rd London General Hospital at Denmark Hill. The surroundings and discipline of a military hospital proved uncongenial, and in 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, placed upon an appeal board, and directed to collect he specimens of gunshot wounds which formed a unique display in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, until they were destroyed by the bombing of 1941. Bland-Sutton became a prosector at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1881 whilst he was still a student at the Middlesex Hospital. He was made Vice-President of the Zoological Society of London in 1928. He lectured on comparative pathology at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town from 1891-1892. He was President of the Medical Society of London 1914; President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland 1929; President of the Royal Society of Medicine 1929; and President of the International Cancer Conference held in London in 1928. He was also a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1924. He died in 1936.

Thomas Moore wrote these notes during lectures by Alexander Monro, presumably secundus, (1733-1817). A Thomas Moore graduated MD at Edinburgh in 1815. No other biographical information was available at the time of compilation.

Alexander Monro, secundus, was born in Edinburgh in 1733. He was the third son of Alexander Monro, primus, (1697-1767), Professor of Medicine and Anatomy at Edinburgh University. From an early age Alexander was designated as his father's successor as Professor of Medicine and his father took his education very seriously. Monro secundus' name first appears on his father's anatomy class list in 1744. The following year he matriculated in the faculty of arts at Edinburgh University. He began attending medical lectures in 1750. In 1753, still a student, he took over the teaching of his father's summer anatomy class and at his father's instigation was named joint professor of medicine and anatomy in 1754. He graduated MD in 1755, and then went on an anatomical grand tour, studying in London with William Hunter, and in Berlin with Johann Friedrick Meckel. He matriculated on 17 Sep at Leiden University and became friends with Albinus. His tour was interrupted when his father's recurring illness brought him home to take up the duties of the professorship in 1758. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1759. In the 50 years he taught at Edinburgh University Monro secundus became the most influential anatomy professor in the English speaking world, lecturing daily from 1 to 3pm, in the 6-month winter session. He spent every morning preparing for his class anatomical specimens from his own extensive collection. When the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh attempted to institute a professorship of surgery Monro acted vigorously to protect his chair, protesting to the town council against such a step. He succeeded in 1777 in having the title of his own professorship formally changed to the chair of medicine, anatomy and surgery, preventing the establishment of a course of surgery in Edinburgh for thirty years. The anatomical research which secured Monro's posthumous medical reputation was his description of the communication between the lateral ventricles of the brain, now known as the foramen of Monro. He first noted it in a paper read before the Philosophical Scoiety of Edinburgh in 1764. Monro was a member of the Harveian Society (a medical supper club), secretary to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, a manager of the Royal Infirmary, and district commissioner for the city of Edinburgh. He married Katherine Inglis on 25 September 1762, and they had two daughters and three sons. The eldest son Alexander Monro tertius (1773-1859), succeeded his father as Professor of Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery. Monro secundus died in 1817.

Benjamin Thompson was born the son of Benjamin Thompson and Ruth Simonds, in Woburn, Massachusetts, North America, in 1753. He had little formal schooling and educated himself by reading books. Later, he attended lectures at Harvard University and became a school teacher. He moved to Concord, New Hampshire and in 1772, he married Sarah Walker Rolfe, a wealthy widow; they had one daughter. In 1775, they separated permanently. Thompson then became an active member of the Tory party and fled to London, England at the fall of Boston. He was given employment at the Colonial Office and occupied himself with various experiments such as the optimal position of firing vents in canons and the velocity of shot. In 1779 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1780 he was made under-secretary for the colonies and later returned to America as Lieutenant-Colonel in the American Dragoons of George III. In 1784 he was knighted. From 1784-1795, he joined the service of the court of the elector of Bavaria and became head of the Bavarian Army. In 1793, he was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and took the name of Count (von) Rumford. He continued his scientific work and showed that heat was lost through convection and as a result he made military cloth to be more insulating. He made soup a staple and nutritional diet for the poor. He also designed a drip-type coffee maker, the double boiler and pots and pans to be used on his `insulated box' more commonly known as a stove. He later designed more efficient fire places whereby the size of the throat was enlarged according to the size of the fire place in order to reduce the amount of smoke emissions. He studied light and made standard candles, and later used steam for efficient production in the manufacture of soap and dye and also in breweries. In 1796, he gave a large amount of money to the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, America, for scientific research prizes into heat and light. In 1799, he helped found the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) with the idea of making it into a museum for technology to educate the poor. He established lectures and gained money from the aristocracy in order to fund the RI, introducing Humphry Davy (later Sir) and Thomas Young as early professors. However, he lost interest in the running of the RI and went to Paris, France, where he married Marie-Anne, widow of Antoine Lavoisier. The marriage failed and he retired to Auteuil, France, where he later died in 1814. Many of his papers were reprinted, for example under S. C. Brown, The Nature of Heat, 1968; Practical Applications of Heat, 1969; Devices and Techniques, 1969; Light and Armament, 1970; Public Institutions, 1970.

Eric Rideal was born the son of Samuel Rideal, a public analyst and consulting chemist, and Elizabeth at Sydenham, Kent. He was educated at Farnham Grammar School and Oundle School as a child. In 1907 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge to read natural sciences. In 1910 he gained first class honours in part one of the Tripos, and subsequently gained first class honours in part two of the Tripos in 1911. A lecturer at Cambridge, Sir William Bate Hardy, steered Eric Rideal into studying surface chemistry. This resulted in him researching at Aachen and Bonn, Germany. He studied electrochemistry and graduated in 1912 and in 1913 he gained the gold medal of the Bonn Society of Engineers for his research. He returned to Westminster, England and in 1914, he worked with war supplies. He was under the Artists' Rifles and moved on to the Royal Engineers as Captain. He was invalided in 1916 and returned to scientific research namely nitrogen research at the University College London laboratory. In 1919 he co-wrote Catalysis in Theory and Practice with H. S. Taylor. He was a visiting professor of the University of Illinois in 1919 and in 1921, he married Margaret Atlee, widow of William Agnew Paton. In 1930 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He also became Professor of Colloid Physics (later Colloid Science) at Cambridge University in 1930, a position he held until 1946. During this period he worked on electrochemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, colloid and surface chemistry and kinetics spectroscopy. From 1939-1945 he worked on explosives, fuels and polymers for the war effort of the Second World War. In 1946 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). He left the RI in 1949 and became Professor of Chemistry at King's College London in 1950, retiring in 1955. In 1951 he was knighted and also gained the Davy medal of the Royal Society. From 1953 to 1958, he was Chairman of the Advisory Council on Scientific Research and the Technical Development of the Ministry of Supply. He was elected a Fellow of King's College London in 1963. He died in a nursing home in London in 1974.

Humphry Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a wood carver, and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He taught himself a great deal through reading, but also attended local grammar schools in Penzance and Truro. In 1795 he was apprenticed to John Bingham Borlase, surgeon of Penzance, where he was introduced to the rudiments of science by Robert Dunkin, a saddler. In 1798 he joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol as an assistant to Thomas Beddoes. There he began researches into heat and light which he later published. In 1799 he published the first volume of West Country Collections and Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration. He experimented with nitrous oxide and suggested that it could be used for surgery due to its anaesthetic properties, however this was ignored and not used until much later in the century. In 1801 he gave his first lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and became Director of the Chemistry Laboratory. In 1802 he became Professor of Chemistry at the RI which he held until 1812. In 1803 he gave his first lecture to the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow and received its Copley medal in 1805. In 1804 he entered Jesus College Cambridge perhaps to finish his medical studies, but he never attended. As Assistant Lecturer at the RI, he undertook research for the Managers, and he also became Chemistry Professor to the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement (a non-government organisation). In particular he researched into the problems of using oak bark for the tanning of leather and discovered that catechu from mimosa of India was much better. In 1805-1806, he toured Ireland and Cornwall with Thomas Bernard to research into mineralogy. After this he was released from investigations for the RI and in 1807 he won the Napoleonic Prize from the Institute of France for his discoveries of the constitution of oxymuratic acid and for demonstrating the existence of potassium, sodium and chlorine by agency of a galvanic battery, thus developing the theory of electrochemical action. In 1812 he was knighted by the Prince Regent and also married a wealthy widow, Mrs Jane Apreece. He then retired from the RI and was made Honorary Professor. In 1813 he visited laboratories in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany with his wife and Michael Faraday (1791-1867) as his assistant, secretary and reluctant valet. He experimented with pigments and combustion of diamonds as well as iodine which he discovered at the same time as the French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lusaac (who called it iode). On his return to London in 1815, Humphry was asked to look into the problem of explosions in mines. He discovered that gas and the flames used to give light to miners caused the explosions, so he designed the miners safety lamp. He toured the continent again in the late 1810s. In 1820 he became President of the Royal Society which he held until 1827. During the 1820s, he discovered that by applying zinc or iron to the copper bottoms of ships, corrosion could be prevented. However, it was deemed a failure as plant life in the sea would adhere to the ships thus causing dragging. In 1826 he travelled to Europe again where he continued to work until his death in 1829. He was buried in the cemetery of Plain-Palais, Geneva and there is a tablet in his memory at Westminster Abbey.

John Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a woodcarver and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He attended preparatory schools in Penzance as a child and later assisted his brother, Humphry Davy, in the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1808. In 1810 John studied medicine at Edinburgh University gaining his degree in 1814. He experimented on the muriatic theories of his brother in order to help prove them. He entered the British Army Medical Department as a surgeon. He became the Inspector General of Hospitals and it was in this capacity that he travelled over much of the British Empire during his foreign service thus producing several notebooks on his observations of various countries. In 1821 he published An Account of the Interior of Ceylon. In 1830 he married Margaret Fletcher. In 1836 he wrote the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy and he edited the collected works of his brother, producing nine volumes in 1839-1840. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1834 and published over 100 papers on observations such as the structure of the heart and circulatory system of amphibians; these are listed in the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers. He lived in the West Indies for a time and returned to the Lake District in the United Kingdom for the remainder of his life. In 1862-1863 he published his Diseases of the Army. Upon his death in 1868, he bequeathed a piece of plate to the Royal Society which had been presented to Sir Humphry Davy by the mine owners for the invention of the safety lamp. His brother had wanted the plate to provide a medal for scientific research.

William Robert Grove was born the son of John Grove, a magistrate, and Anne Bevan, in Swansea, Wales, in 1811. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and graduated in 1832. In 1835, he became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn and also became a member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in the same year. In 1837 he married Emma Powles and they subsequently had six children. Despite his occupation in law, he was interested in science and researched into electrochemistry. He developed the Grove gas voltaic battery' in 1839, and also developed theGrove cell' using platinum for increased voltage. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, and gained their Royal medal in 1847. In 1841 he became Professor of Experimental Philosophy at the London Institution, in Finsbury Square, London, where he also gave lectures. In 1846 he published On the Correlation of Physical Forces, which established the theory of the mutual convertibility of forces. He was a member of the Chemical Society; a Member of the Council of the Royal Society from 1846 to 1847 and became Secretary of the Royal Society from 1848 to 1849. He retired from being a barrister in 1853 due to ill health, but he also became part of Queen's Counsel in the same year. He then became a member of the Royal Commission on the Law of Patents in 1864, and a Judge in the Court of Common Pleas in 1871. In 1871 he was knighted. He became a Judge of the Queen's Bench in 1880 and Privy Councillor in 1887. He died in London in 1896.

William Crookes was born the son of Joseph Crookes, tailor, and Mary Scott in London, in 1832. His education was irregular but eventually he attended A W Hofmann's Royal College of Chemistry in London in 1848. In 1850 he became Hofmann's assistant until 1854. He attended lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) given by Michael Faraday (1791-1867). In 1854 he was Superintendent of the Meteorological Department of the Radcliffe Astronomical Observatory in Oxford. In 1854 he worked with John Spiller on the collodion process of photography and improved it. In 1855 he taught chemistry at the College of Science in Chester. In 1856, he researched into photography and compiled a Handbook to the Waxed-Paper Process in Photography (Chapman and Hall, 1857). He also undertook the editorship of the Liverpool Photographic Journal in 1856, and in 1857 he became Secretary of the London Photographic Society, a position he held until 1858. He was also the editor and proprietor of the weekly Chemical News journal from 1859. In 1856 he married Ellen Humphrey and they subsequently had ten children. Crookes researched into spectra and in 1861 he discovered a new element which he called thallium. In 1863 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (RS). In 1865 he discovered the process of extracting precious metals from ores, however it had already been discovered in America and Crookes had to negotiate half rights over patents for using sodium amalgam, only to be superseded by the discovery of potassium cyanide as the best solvent of gold. From 1867 he became interested in spiritualism, which affected his views on science. By 1870 he decided to investigate spiritualism as a scientist and prove the existence of psychic force, an investigation which caused him to lose some respect as a scientist. Despite this, he developed the technique of determining the atomic weight of thallium. In 1873 he wrote the paper `Attraction and Repulsion resulting from Radiation' published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; this resulted in his invention of the radiometer in 1875. In 1876 he researched into radiant matter and found that molecular pressure was the result of radiant matter being affected by magnets. In the 1880s he worked on incandescent lamps for electricity. He became Director of the Electric Light and Power Company in 1881 and patented his designs on incandescent lamps, however he sold these as newer and better designs developed. In c1891 he became Director and later Chairman of the Notting Hill Electric Light Company which prospered in its time. In 1890 he was elected President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In 1897 he was elected President of the Society for Psychical Research and in the same year he was knighted. He gave lectures on making diamonds at the RI in 1897 and became its Honorary Secretary in 1900 a position he held until 1912. In 1908 he was elected Foreign Secretary of the RS until 1913 when he was elected President of the RS, a position he held until 1915. He published papers in journals such as Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as Proceedings of the Royal Society and in Chemical News. He died in 1919.

William Henry Bragg was born in Westward, Cumberland, the son of Robert John Bragg, a farmer, and Mary Wood in 1862. He was educated at Market Harborough and attended King William's College on the Isle of Man. In 1881 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge to study Mathematics. In 1884 he was third wrangler in part one of the Tripos and gained a first in part 3 of the Mathematical Tripos in 1885. In 1886 he became Elder Professor of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Adelaide and moved to Australia. In 1889 he married Gwendoline Todd and they had three children, William Lawrence, Robert Charles and Gwendoline Mary. He did not undertake much research until after addressing some scientific people in the country about current and past research in 1904. With the assistance of R. D. Kleeman, he decided to research into the radiations of electrons, x-rays, radioactivity and the extent to which they were absorbed and scattered by gases and solids. He discovered that alpha-particles of radium were ceased in ionisation. In 1903 he became President of Section A of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1907 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1909 he returned to England as Cavendish Professor of the University of Leeds which he held until 1915. In 1912 Max Von Laue showed that x-rays are diffracted by the atoms of a crystal. Using ionisation on such work and working with his son, William Lawrence Bragg (known as Lawrence in order to distinguish him from his father), they developed the science of x-ray crystallography. In 1913 he used ionisation to reflect x-rays and together with his son Lawrence, published "X-Rays and Crystal Structure" in 1915. He won the Nobel Prize for physics with Lawrence in 1915. He also gained several medals for his work on x-rays and crystallography, such as the Rumford medal in 1916 and the Copley medal in 1930 from the Royal Society, and the Faraday medal in 1936 from the Institution of Electrical Engineers. From 1915 to 1923, he was the Quain Professor of Physics at the University of London. During the First World War, he worked on underwater acoustics for the Admiralty in order to detect submarines. He was knighted in 1920. He became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1923. He was known as a good lecturer and had many of his lectures published for example: The World of Sound in 1920 and Concerning the Nature of Things in 1925, which were taken from his Christmas Lectures given at the RI. He published papers such as `On the Absorption of X-rays and the Classification of the X-rays in Radium' in Philosophical Magazine in 1904, and others in Nature, Proceedings of the Royal Society and Transactions Royal Society South Australia; and books such as Crystallography and X-Rays and Crystal Structure. In 1932 he became President of the Physical Society. In 1935 he became President of the Royal Society. He died at the RI, London, in 1942.

David Gregory of Kinnairdie (1627-1720), inventor: apprenticed by his father to a mercantile house in Holland; returned in 1655, and succeeded to the estate of Kinnairdie on the death of an older brother; highly regarded in medicine, having a large gratuitous practice both among the poor, and people of standing; first man in Aberdeenshire to possess a barometer, and his weather forecasts exposed him to suspicions of witchcraft; moved to Aberdeen and investigated artillery; with the help of an Aberdeen watchmaker constructed an improved model of a cannon, forwarding it to his eldest son David, and to Sir Isaac Newton, who held it was 'for the diabolical purpose of increasing carnage', and who urged him to break it up.

David Gregorie (1661-1708), astronomer: son of David Gregory (1627-1720); Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in 1683; first professor to lecture publicly on Newtonian philosophy, and enthusiastic promoter of Newton's 'Principia'; in 1691 went to Oxford where he was introduced to Newton, who became an intimate friend and who with John Flamsteed influenced his appointment as Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Oxford; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1692; his principal work Astronomiae Physicae et Geometricae Elementa in 1702 was the first text book composed on gravitational principles and remodelling astronomy in conformity with physical theory; approved by Newton, who had included in it his lunar theory, and for which he wrote a preface; Gregory was a skilful mathematician who left manuscript treatises on fluxions, trigonometry, mechanics and hydrostatics, and who was also known for his printing in 1703 of all the writings attributed, with any show of authority, to Euclid.

James Gregory (1638-1675), mathematician: younger brother of David Gregory (1627-1708); his scientific talent was discovered and encouraged by his brother, and in 1673 at the age of 24 he published his Optica Promota, containing the first feasible description of a reflecting telescope, his invention of it dating from 1661, and inspiring Newton to make his own reflecting telescope; studied mathematics in Padua, 1664-1667, publishing Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura in 1667, showing how to find the areas of the circle, elipse, and hyperbole by means of converging series, and applying the same new method to calculation of logarithms; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1668; friendly debate with Newton, 1672-1673, as to merits of their respective telescopes; from 1674 first exclusively mathematical professor at Edinburgh.

Charles Gregory was one of the 32 children of David Gregory (1627-1720) and brother of the second David Gregory (1661-1708).

The origins of the Royal Society lie in an "invisible college" of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found 'a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning'. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker.

The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. At first apparently nameless, the name The Royal Society first appears in print in 1661, and in the second Royal Charter of 1663 the Society is referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'.

The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was not until 1710, under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand.

In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn's Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society's Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication.

From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows.

The Society moved again in 1780 to premises at Somerset House provided by the Crown, an arrangement made by Sir Joseph Banks who had become President in 1778 and was to remain so until his death in 1820. Banks was in favour of maintaining a mixture among the Fellowship of working scientists and wealthy amateurs who might become their patrons. This view grew less popular in the first half of the 19th century and in 1847 the Society decided that in future Fellows would be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work.

This new professional approach meant that the Society was no longer just a learned society but also de facto an academy of scientists. The Government recognised this in 1850 by giving a grant to the Society of £1,000 to assist scientists in their research and to buy equipment. Therefore a Government Grant system was established and a close relationship began, which nonetheless still allowed the Society to maintain its autonomy, essential for scientific research. In 1857 the Society moved once more, to Burlington House in Piccadilly, with its staff of two.

The Royal Society Building Over the next century the work and staff of the Society grew rapidly and soon outgrew this site. Therefore in 1967 the Society moved again to its present location on Carlton House Terrace with a staff which has now grown to over 120, all working to further the Royal Society's roles as independent scientific academy, learned society and funding body .

Blackett was born in Kensington, London. He was educated at the Osborne Naval College and Dartmouth College for a career in the Royal Navy and saw action during the First World War at the Battle of Jutland. He resigned from the navy at the end of the war and entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, to read for the Natural Sciences Tripos, 1919-1921. He became a research student under Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1921, working with cloud chambers. In 1924 he succeeded in obtaining the first photographs of an atomic transmutation, which was of nitrogen into an oxygen isotope. He continued to develop the cloud chamber and in 1932, with the assistance of G. Occhialini, he designed a cloud chamber in which photographs of cosmic rays were taken automatically. Early in 1933 the device confirmed the existence of the positron. In the same year he became Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, London, where he continued his cosmic ray studies, demonstrating in 1935 the formation of showers of positive and negative electrons from gamma rays in approximately equal numbers. In 1937 he succeeded W.L. Bragg as Langworthy Professor of Physics at Manchester University, continuing his cosmic ray work. He was brought into the Air Defence Committee in 1936 by H.T. Tizard and during the Second World War he contributed to or directed several research projects such as proximity fuses and bombsights and greatly developed the technique of operational research, notably as applied to controversies over bombing policy and the U-boat campaign. He returned to academic life at the end of the war and, as a consequence of his research into cosmic rays, became interested in the history of the Earth's magnetic field and turned to the study of rock magnetism. In 1953 he was appointed Head of the Physics Department at Imperial College, London, where he built up a team specialising in rock magnetism. He was Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow, 1965-1974. Blackett was always politically committed to the left, and in later years to developing countries and especially to India. At certain periods he exerted influence, particularly after the Labour Party's General Election victory in 1964 when he became Deputy Chairman and Scientific Adviser, Advisory Council on Technology, Ministry of Technology.

Blackett received many honours and awards both in Britain and internationally. He was elected FRS in 1933 (Bakerian Lecture 1939, Royal Medal 1940, Copley Medal 1956, PRS 1965-1970), and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948 for his work on particle disintegration and cosmic rays. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1967 and received a Life Peerage in 1969.

At school, Christopher, like his brother Michael, proved an accomplished mathematician but after winning a scholarship to Oxford decided to turn his efforts to chemistry. Graduating in 1945 with a first-class honours degree, he went on to hold various prestigious positions at the University of Manchester, King's College London, and Chicago University and in 1954 was appointed Humphrey Plummer Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Cambridge.

Using the tools of quantum and statistical mechanics he made major contributions to the study of the structure and properties of molecules and to molecular spectroscopy. Understanding the benefit of communication between disciplines, Christopher also combined the voices of molecular chemistry and physics to become the founder of the journal Molecular Physics. At home with some of the greatest minds of the day, Christopher could include the Nobel Prize winning Gerhard Herzberg FRS in his list of many correspondents and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1958.

In the late 1960s Christopher's career made another move towards interdisciplinary research when he made the dramatic decision to leave chemistry and enter the field of artificial intelligence. Always taking an active interest in the contribution of scientific analysis to philosophical questions, his research now focused on the study of the mind. Bringing together groups in computer engineering, computer science, linguistics and experimental psychology, Christopher coined the term 'cognitive science' to cover areas as diverse as informatics, neural networks, perception and language generation and co-founded the first school of Epistemics at the University of Edinburgh.

Having always had an aptitude for music - Christopher was both a talented performer and composer- in his later years he also gave fresh insight into the theory of music. Among his work, some of which remained unpublished at his death, include computer programs for parsing Bach and research into the algorithmic analysis of harmony, rhythm and metre. With his eye for big questions, the collection also shows Christopher's interest in the effects of modern transport on climate change as well as correspondence with Francis Crick FRS concerning consciousness, indicating that he was indeed a true all-round scientist and polymath.