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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.

William White Cooper was born in Holt, Wiltshire, in 1816. He studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital from 1834, and became a private pupil of surgeon Edward Stanley. Cooper took notes of Sir Richard Owen's lectures on comparative anatomy given at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1838-1839. Owen was impressed and awarded Cooper a prize. The notes were later published as Lectures in the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (1843). Cooper received the MRCS in 1838, and the FRCS in 1845. He was one of the original staff of the North London Eye Institution. Subsequently he became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital Paddington. He was appointed Surgeon-Oculist in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1859. He died in 1886, before his imminent knighthood.

Lyon Playfair was born in Bengal, India, in 1818. He was sent from India to St Andrews to be raised by an aunt, in 1820. His mother joined him, but he did not see his father until he was 22 years old. He was educated at the parish school, a grammar school and then entered the University of St Andrews in 1832. He was sent to train as a merchant in Glasgow with an uncle, but his medical ambitions prevailed. He enrolled at Anderson's University and attended the chemistry classes of Thomas Graham. He continued his medical studies at Edinburgh University, and then University College, London. Here he became laboratory assistant to Thomas Graham. Playfair studied with the eminent organic chemist, Justus von Liebig, in 1839. His discoveries of a new fatty acid in the butter of nutmeg, and a new crystalline substance in cloves gave him an excellent reputation with Liebig. Playfair became honorary Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Manchester. He was a member of the Royal Commission on sanitation, and received a grant to study the efficiency of charcoal iron furnaces. He moved to London in 1845, becoming chemist to the Geological Survey, and worked on various research assignments for the Crown and the government, including trying to combat a series cholera epidemics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1848. He was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the new government-run School of Mines, in 1851. He was appointed Secretary for Science in the new Department of Science and Art (DSA), in 1853. He accepted the Presidency of the Chemical Society, and also took up the Professorship of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, in 1858. He chaired a Royal Commission on the restrictions on herring fishing in 1862-1863, and then the cattle plague. He lobbyed for an investigation of the outcome of the Paris Universal Exhibition, in 1867. He presided over a commission looking into the administration of the civil service, which reported in 1875. At this time he was also involved in heated parliamentary debates on vivisection. He was appointed by William Gladstone as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways in 1880. The issue of Irish Home Rule dominated this administration. He found he had a lack of support and resigned in 1882. In 1883 he was made KCB, and spent some years on the back benches. He served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1885. He published his principal public addresses in Subjects of Social Welfare, 1889. Playfair was created Baron Playfair of St Andrews in 1892, whereupon he left the Commons and was made lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. He was appointed as GCB in 1895. He proposed the creation of a new museum at South Kensington in 1897, proposing the title 'Victorian Museum' in honour of the Queen's jubilee. He did not live to see the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899. He died in 1898.

Thomas Wormald was born in Pentonville, in 1802. He was educated at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev W Heald, Vicar of Bristol. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818. He visited schools in Paris and saw the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveithier, and Velpeau. He became House Surgeon to William Lawrence in 1824. He became Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1826, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1838, and spent the next 23 years teaching in the out-patient department. He became full Surgeon in 1861, and was obliged to resign under the age rule in 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867; Hunterian Orator in 1857; a Member of the Court of Examiners from1858-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864; Vice-President in 1863 and 1864; and was elected President in 1865. He died in 1873.

John Hunter was born in East Kilbride, in 1728. He received little formal education. He moved to London in 1748, with his elder brother William Hunter (1718-1783) who was a midwife and physician, and a private lecturer in surgery and anatomy. Initially John made dissections and prepared specimens for William's lectures, and he started attending lectures in 1749. He became a surgeon-pupil at St George's Hospital in 1754, and started to give lectures for William. By 1750 John was so proficient at dissection that he was able to make the first set of preparations for his brother's comprehensive study of pregnancy, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, published in 1774. John was commissioned as an army surgeon in 1761, and joined the British military expedition to Belle Île, off the northern coast of France. He was posted to Portugal in 1762. While serving with the army he laid the foundations for future work by studying the regeneration of the tails of lizards. He also carried out researches on the treatment of venereal disease and gunshot wounds. On his return to London he taught practical anatomy and operative surgery, and worked with the dentist James Spence. The latter resulted in two major publications: The Natural History of Human Teeth (1771) and A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth (1778) which included important accounts of the transplantation of teeth in people, as well as the more famous experiment of the transplantation of a human tooth into a cock's comb. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767 and became a Member of the Company of Surgeons in 1768. He was appointed surgeon at St George's Hospital. He gave lectures in anatomy at the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1769-1770. Shortly afterwards he started to lecture in surgery to his pupils from St George's Hospital. In 1775 Hunter began to advertise a course of lectures on 'The Principles and Practice of Surgery', and he continued to stage these each year until his death. His surgical achievements were recognised by his appointment as Surgeon-extraordinary to George III and as Croonian lecturer at the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society and received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the Court of Assistants of the Company of Surgeons in 1789. Hunter had been appointed Assistant Surgeon-General to the armed forces in 1785, and Surgeon-General and Inspector General of Regimental Hospitals in 1790. He drew up a scheme for training army medical staff which he successfully put into practice. Hunter was also one of the first vice-presidents of the London Veterinary College, established in 1791. He died in 1793.

William Hunter was born in Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1718. Intended for the church, he attended the University of Glasgow from 1731-1736 where he was exposed to the philosophical teachings of Francis Hutcheson which turned him against the rigid dogmas of Presbyterian theology. An acquaintance with the physician William Cullen (1710-1790) interested him in the medical profession, and he studied with Cullen for three years. Eager to widen his experience, he went to London in 1741 where he worked as an assistant to William Smellie MD (1697-1763) and then from 1741-1742 with James Douglas, both of whom fostered his interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. Between 1741-1749 he was tutor to William George Douglas. In 1750 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow. In 1749 he was appointed as a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, England, before transferring for a brief time to the British Lying-in Hospital. He was particularly interested in obstetrics and in 1762 was called to attend Queen Charlotte on the birth of her first child. Two years later, he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte and rapidly became the most sought after physician in London. His research, embodied in his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) and his practical example, including the establishment of specialist training for both physicians and midwives, did much to establish obstetrics as a respectable branch of medicine for the first time, though he took a perverse pleasure in continuing to describe himself as a despised 'man-midwife'. He died in 1783.

William Heberden was born in Southwark, London, in 1710. He was educated at the local grammar school. He transferred to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1724, and became a Fellow in 1730. He practised as a physician in Cambridge for several years, delivering a series of lectures on Materia Medica, for 10 years. He was admitted as a Candidate of the College of Physicians, in 1745 and a Fellow in 1746. He settled in London in 1748, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1749. He was also nominated Gulstonian Lecturer in 1749; Harveian orator in 1750; and Croonian lecturer in 1760. He was censor in 1749, 1755, and 1760; Consiliarius in 1762; and was constituted an Elect in 1762, which he resigned in 1781. He died in 1801.

William Clift was born near Bodmin, Cornwall, in 1775. He was educated locally and demonstrated an aptitude for illustration. This was noticed by Walter Raleigh Gilbert and his wife Nancy, who had been a schoolfellow of Anne Home, who had married John Hunter in 1771. On Gilbert's recommendation, Clift was apprenticed to John Hunter as an anatomical assistant, until Hunter's sudden death in 1793.
After Hunter's death, his collection of specimens was offered for sale to the government. During the period of negotiations, Clift was employed to look after the collections for a small income. He did this until 1799 when the collections were purchased by the government. During this period, Clift feared for the safety of the collection, and copied out many of Hunter's unpublished manuscripts. This meant that much of the content was saved from loss through Sir Everard Home's destruction of his brother-in-law's manuscripts in 1823. In 1799 the government asked The Company of Surgeons (soon to become the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800) to look after the John Hunter collections. The Trustees of the College then made Clift conservator of the new Hunterian Museum paying him £80 per annum. He was a prolific record keeper and his diaries are a valuable resource for information about the workings of the College and Museum as well as wider social life in London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823; he was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry; and also a fellow of the Geological Society. Clift retired from the museum in 1842, when he was replaced by Sir Richard Owen as curator. He died in 1849.

Florence Nightingale was born Villia Columbia, Florence, in 1820. She lived in Embley Park, Hampshire and was educated by her father. She recorded in 1837, that 'God had called her to His service.' She became interested in the mystics and studied the lives of people such as St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. She travelled to the religious community at Kaiserwerth-am- Rhein, where she saw the possibility of changing nursing by training suitably motivated women of any class. She published an anonymous account of the community, The Institution of Kaiserwort on the Rhine for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, (1851). On her return to England she continued her interest in nursing, and accepted the post of unpaid superintendant to the Institute for Sick Governesses in Harley Street, London. She became an expert in hospital administration, demanding improvements in facilities, and insisting that Roman Catholics be admitted as patients. She assisted in the cholera epidemic in Soho, in 1851. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State at War, wrote to Nightingale asking her to take a party of nurses to Scutari, to help the neglected wounded. She took a party of 38 nurses to Scutari to assist at the 4 hospitals, in 1854, where she ensured conditions were improved. She used money from The Timesnewspaper to buy much needed equipment and improve hygiene. She insisted on attending to all the worst cases herself and made a point of visiting all the wards. Appalled by the inadequate feeding arrangements she persuaded Lord Panmure, Secretary of State for War to arrange for Alexis Soyer, Chef at the Reform Cub, to come out and organise the cooking. She proved a formidable administrator and organiser and her role at Scutari was as much that of a 'General Purveyor' as of a medical nurse. She collapsed with Crimean Fever (which she referred to as Typhus) in 1855. On her recovery she returned to Scutari to continue working. When news of her illness reached Britain there were prayers for her recovery and The Times referred to her as 'The Lady of the Lamp'. Many people made gifts to help her in her work, and raised £45,000. She returned to England after the war and set up a reform cabinet and established a highly effective relationship with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She managed to establish a Royal Commission, with Sidney Herbert as chairman, in 1857, and published her report Notes on matters affecting the health, efficency and hospital administration of the British Army, in 1858. She was also made a member of the Statistical Society, in 1858. She became an invalid in 1858, but continued to work for the promotion of sanitary science, the collection of statistics, the design of hospitals, and reform of nursing and midwifery services. She campaigned for a pure water supply in 1861, and stressed the importance of irrigation and sanitary reform in India. She used part of the Nightingale Fund to finance an experimental training scheme for midwives at King's College Hospital. She assisted the Association for Improving Workhouse Infirmaries which eventually resulted in the Metropolitan Poor Law Act (1867). She used the Nightingale Fund to provide a training scheme for nurses based at the Highgate Poor Law Infirmary, and in 1881, for a team of Nightingale Nurses at the St Marylebone Institute, thus laying the foundations for training nurses in the new municipal hospitals after the Local Government Act (1888). She conducted a survey with Florence Lees in 1874, which resulted in the Report of the National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. In 1875 the Metropolitan and National Nursing Home was opened in Bloomsbury. She was the recipient of many honours including membership of the German Order of the Cross of Merit, and the French Secours aux Blesses Militaires. She became the first woman to be made a member of the Order of Merit, in 1907. She died in 1910.

Giovanni Aldini was born in Bologna, Italy, 1762. He became Professor of Physics at Bologna in 1798. His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He travelled in Europe, publicly electrifying human and animal bodies, and his performances were extraordinary theatrical spectacles. He came to London in 1802. His most famous experiment took place at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, in 1803, on a hanged man named George Forster. According to newspaper reports of the time, some of the spectators genuinely believed that the body was about to come to life, and were suitably awestruck even though it did not happen. The Emperor of Austria made him a Knight of the Iron Crown and a Councillor of State in Milan. He died in 1834.

Henry Victor Martin was born in 1811. He studied in Birmingham, and St Bartholomews Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1834 and a fellow in 1859. He was surgeon to the 1st Devon Militia before taking medical charge of the military wards of the Barrington Hospital, Limerick. He practised at Staines, Middlesex, before retiring to Hounslow, and later to Epsom College. He died in 1901.

George Perkins was born in Staines, Middlesex, in 1892. He was educated at Hurstpierpoint College, Sussex, and Hertford College, Oxford. He studied medicine at Oxford, and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was awarded his degree in 1916. He joined the RAMC and was posted to East Africa as the medical officer to the 3rd King's African Rifles, with the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Military Cross for his services in East Africa. He returned to St Thomas' Hospital as House Surgeon, and was appointed to the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, Hammersmith, in 1919. He was appointed Senior Medical Officer at Shepherd's Bush Orthopaedic Hospital, in 1920. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1921, and was elected honorary assistant surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He returned to St Thomas' Hospital as Chief Assistant to the Orthopaedic Department in 1923, and became Assistant Surgeon of the Department, in 1926. Perkins was recalled to the Army in 1939, where he served in the Casualty Clearing Stations in France until 1940, when he was invalided because of serious illness. He began to write his book on fractures at this time and after his convalescence he worked at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. He became President of the British Orthopaedic Association. He returned to St Thomas' in 1946, and became head of the Orthopaedic Department, a role he continued even when he was appointed Professor of Surgery in the London University at St Thomas' Hospital, in 1948 until 1954. He retired as head of the Orthopaedic department of St Thomas's in 1957. He died in 1979.

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).

No biographical information relating to William Cotton was available at the time of compilation.

Robert Keate was born in Laverton, Somerset, in 1777. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate (1745-1821), a surgeon. Robert Keate entered St George's Hospital, London, in 1793. He became hospital mate at Chelsea Hospital in 1794. He became a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1798, and was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Army. He retired from the army in 1810 with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. He was on the surgical staff of St George's Hospital, London, from 1800-1853. He was finally removed by the Governors. He was a member of the Court of Assistants, from 1822-1857, and the Court of Examiners, from 1827-1855. He was President of the College in 1831 and 1839. He held royal appointments to George III, George IV, William IV, and in 1841 to Queen Victoria. He supported the institution of a "higher grade" of surgeon which eventually became the Fellowship. He died in 1857.

Thomas Stone was the son of a beadle, and was appointed to assist in the Library in 1832. After Robert Willis retired in 1845, Stone took over all of the work in the Library. Dr John Chatto was appointed Librarian in 1853, and Stone was transferred to the College office as a clerk where he worked until 1871. His son, William Domett Stone (1840-1921), became a Fellow of the College in 1865.

Benjamin Travers was born in Cheapside, London, in 1783. He was educated at the grammar school in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and then privately. He was a pupil of Astley Cooper from 1800-1806. During this time he gave occasional demonstrations and set up a weekly clinical society. He took his diploma and became MRCS in 1806. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and was appointed surgeon to the East India Company's warehouses and brigade in 1809. He was elected surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital in 1815, as well as the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye (now Moorfields Eye Hospital), where he succeeded Astley Cooper, and remained until 1816. He resigned his joint lectureship with Astley Cooper in 1819. He began to lecture again in 1834, with Frederick Tyrell at St Thomas' Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to Queen Victoria in 1837 and to Prince Albert in 1840. He was elected FRCS in 1813; Member of Council, 1839-1858; Examiner in surgery, 1841-1858; Chairman of the Board of Midwifery Examiners, 1855; Vice-President, 1845, 1846, 1854 and 1855; President, 1847 and 1856; and he was Huntarian Orator in 1838. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. He was elected president of the Hunterian Society in 1827, as well as President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He died in 1858.

The membership lists for the Royal College of Surgeons of England show more than one William Hutchinson in the early 1800s. No further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.

Sir James Berry was born in Kingston, Ontario, in 1860. He was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon, England, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. At the London BS examination in 1885, Berry took first-class honours and won the University scholarship and gold medal. He served as house surgeon at St Bartholomew's, and was demonstrator of anatomy. He then became surgical registrar. He became surgeon to the Alexandra Hospital for Diseases of the Hip (Queen Square, London) in 1885. He was elected surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, in 1891. At the start of World War One, Berry's knowledge of Serbia led him and his wife, an anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, to volunteer for medical service there. They organised the Anglo-Serbian hospital unit, under the British Red Cross Society, and largely from the Royal Free Hospital. It was established early-1915 at Vrnjatchka Banja. They were over-run in 1916 by the Austro-Hungarian army and an exchange of prisoners was arranged. Berry then led a Red Cross unit in Romania and was with the Serbian army at Odessa, 1916-1917. He was awarded the Orders of the Star of Romania, St Sava or Serbia, and St Anna of Russia. He returned to England in 1917 and was honorary surgeon at the military hospitals at Napsbury and Bermonsdsey. He was president of the Medical Society of London, 1921-1922; a member of the Council of the RCSEng, 1923-1929; and President of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1926-1928. He was knighted in 1925. He retired in 1927 and was elected consulting surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital. He died in 1946.

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.

Henry Bence Jones was born the son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Jones and Matilda Bence in 1814. He attended Harrow School and then Trinity College Cambridge gaining a BA in 1836 and a MD in 1849. He undertook medical studies at St George's Hospital and became a physician there from 1846 to 1872. He studied chemistry under Thomas Graham at the University College, London, and in 1841 he went to Giessen, Germany to study under Justus Liebig. In 1842 he became licentiate to the Royal College of Physicians and was a Fellow in 1849. He married Lady Millicent Acheson. In 1846 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He studied the aspects of chemistry in pathology and medicine, and gave a course of lectures in Animal Chemistry in its application to Stomach and Renal Diseases'. He became Secretary of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1860, a position he held until 1873. In 1868 he gave theCroonian lectures on matter and force'. He was a friend and biographer of Michael Faraday (1791-1867). He published a book on Animal Electricity in 1852. He died in 1873.

Henry Hallett Dale was born the son of Charles James Dale, businessman, and Frances Ann Hallett, in London in 1875. He was educated at Tollington Park College in London and then subsequently at Leys School in Cambridge. He later gained a First in the Natural Sciences Tripos at Trinity College Cambridge, in 1898. In 1900 he began clinical training at St Bartholemew's Hospital, gaining his MD in 1909. In 1904 he married Ellen Harriet Hallett and they had three children. He studied at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratory in 1904, looking at chemical phase transmissions of nerve fibre endings to responsive cells, as well as the reaction of histamine in animals. In 1914 he became a member of the Medical Research Committee (named Council after 1920), and from 1928 to 1942, he was Director of the Council and that of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research. His researches investigated into adrenaline reversal, which became the basis for using phentolamine in the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma. His work on histamine, which he carried out with P P Laidlaw (later Sir) in 1911, highlighted the effects of poisoning and anaphylactic shock. He became a spokesman for the men of science and helped standardize drugs and anti-toxins; he also developed the terms cholinergic and adrenergic. In 1914 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (RS) and was a Secretary of the RS from 1925 to 1935. In 1942 he became Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and in the same year he was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the War Cabinet; he held these positions until 1946 and 1947 respectively. In 1947 he was President of the British Association, and from 1948 to 1950, he was President of the Royal Society of Medicine. From 1950 to 1955 he was President of the British Council. He gained many medals for his work such as the RS Copley medal in 1937, and in 1936 he won the Nobel Prize with Otto Loewi for their work on the chemical transmission of nerve endings. In 1932 he was knighted, and in 1943 he was made a Knight of the Grand Cross of the British Empire. The Society for Endocrinology set up an annual Dale medal from 1959 and the RS set up the Dale professorship from 1961. He published many papers in journals such as the Journal of Physiology, and he also published works such as Adventures in Physiology with Excursions into Auto Pharmacology (Pergamon Press, London, 1953) and An Autumn Gleaning (Pergamon Press, London, 1954). He died in 1968.

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.

James Dewar was born the son of Thomas Dewar, vintner and innkeeper, and Ann Eadie in Kincardine-on-Forth, Scotland. As a child he attended local schools such as the Dollar Academy and he also learnt the art of violin making. In 1858 he attended Edinburgh University under James David Forbes, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Lyon Playfair, Professor of Chemistry. He became an assistant to Lyon Playfair from 1867 to 1868, subsequently becoming assistant to Alexander Crum Brown from 1868 to 1873. In 1867 he invented a mechanical device to represent Alexander Crum Brown's graphic notation for organic compounds. He worked on heat, chemical reactions, atomic and molecular weight determinations and spectroscopy. In 1869 he became a lecturer at the Royal Veterinary College of Edinburgh. In 1871 he married Helen Rose Banks. In 1873 he became assistant chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society. He was elected Jacksonian Professor of Natural Experimental Philosophy, Cambridge, in 1873, and became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1877. At the RI, Dewar worked on cryogenics and from 1877 to 1904, he wrote 78 papers on the subject of spectroscopy with George Downing Liveing. During the course of his work on cryogenics he invented the silver vacuum vessels known as the Dewar or Thermos flask. In 1878 he achieved the liquefaction of oxygen. From 1892 to 1895, he worked with A. Fleming, Professor of Electrical Engineering at University College London. He worked on conduction, thermo electricity, magnetic permeability and dielectric constants of metal and alloys. In 1896 he became Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI. He worked on the liquefaction of gases and in 1898 he liquefied hydrogen. He was a member of the Explosives Committee from 1888 to 1889, inventing cordite with Sir Frederick Abel. From 1904 to 1914, he worked on low temperature calorimentry investigations; he later studied bubbles and thin films and infrared radiation from the sky by day and night. In 1904 he was knighted. He gained several awards for his work such as the Davy medal, the Copley medal and the Rumford medals of the Royal Society; the Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts; and the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for 1900-1904 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died, in office, in 1923.

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.

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 .

Born, 11 October 1886; fourth son of Colonel Sir Alfred Mordaunt Egerton, KCVO, and the Hon Mary Georgina Ormsby-Gore, eldest daughter of the 2nd Baron Harlech; known from childhood as Jack; attended Eton College, from 1900; his science master was Thomas Cunningham Porter and while at the school Egerton was encouraged to found the Eton College Scientific Society; continued his studies at University College, London, from 1904; read Chemistry under Sir William Ramsey and graduated with first class honours, 1908; his research field was Thermodynamics; worked under Professor Ganz at Nancy University, 1909; Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1909-1913; worked with W H Nernst in Berlin, 1913; Department of Explosives Supply, Ministry of Munitions, 1914-1918; Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, 1918-1935; appointed Reader in Thermodynamics, Oxford University, 1923; elected Fellow of The Royal Society, 1926; served on Council of The Royal Society, 1931-1933; Chair of Chemical Technology, Department of Chemical Technology and Applied Physical Chemistry, Imperial College, 1936-1952; Physical Secretary of The Royal Society, 1938-1948; research on fuel, fire-raising and fire protection, 1939-1945; member of War Cabinet Scientific Advisory Committee; chairman of the Fuel and Propulsion Committee of the Admiralty; ex-officio member of committees connected with The Royal Society; travelled to the USA to reorganise the work of the British Central Scientific Office and to improve scientific liaison between London and Washington, 1942; knighted, 1943; Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, 1948; closely involved in the organization of the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference, London, 1948; travelled abroad, with a special interest in India, which he visited, 1948, 1954; appointed chairman of a committee to review the working and development of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Director, Salters Institute of Industrial Chemistry, 1949-1959; Emeritus Professor of Chemical Technology, University of London, 1953-1959; Chairman, Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, India, 1954; Adviser to the Tobacco Manufacturers' Standing Committee, 1956; undertook a tour of the Middle East (Beirut, Baghdad and Teheran), 1957; received various Fellowships, honours and awards; Fellow of University College, London, Imperial College and City and Guilds College; honorary degrees from Birmingham, Cairo, Nancy and Helsinki; Honorary President of Combustion Institute; Honorary Editor of Fuel and also of Combustion and Flame; British Coal Utilization Research Associations: Coal Science Lecturer, 1952; Institution of Mechanical Engineers: George Stephenson Research Prize, Herbert Akroyd Stuart Prize, and Thomas Hawkesley Lecturer for 1940; Institution of Civil Engineers: the Telford Premium, 1942; The Royal Society: Rumford Medal, 1946; Institution of Chemical Engineers: Hinchley Memorial Medal, 1954; Institute of Fuel: Melchett Medal, 1956; Combustion Institute: Egerton Medal, 1958; married the Hon Ruth Cripps, 1912; adopted Francis, the posthumous younger son of Egerton's brother Louis who had been killed in the First World War; a keen watercolourist, with an exhibition of his paintings held at the Chenil Galleries, 1957; died in France, in the Alpes-Maritimes, 7 September 1959. Publications: The 1939 Callendar Steam Tables with G S Callendar (E Arnold & Co, London, 1939); Editor of Fuel; lectures and papers largely relating to combustion and utilization of energy.

Scientific papers sent to the Society with a view to publishing, these were either not published or abstracted after being read at meetings of Fellows, and subsequently deposited in the archives.

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.

The Council for Science and Society was established in 1972 as an independent organization with the stated objectives 'to promote the study of and research into the social effects of science and technology: and to disseminate the results thereof to the public'.

Certificates of Election were created as a result of a meeting of Council on 7 December 1730 when a draft of a new statute was proposed with the intention of limiting membership of the Society. The Statute proposed that each candidate for election should be recommended by three existing Fellows, 'who shall deliver to one of the Secretaries a paper signed by themselves, signifying the name, addition, profession, occupation, and chief qualifications of the Candidate for election, as also notifying the usual place of habitation'. Such certificates were dated and hung in the meeting room for ten gatherings of Fellows before being balloted, and bear the signatures of those Fellows supporting the candidate, with the date of election. Certificates were not made compulsory until 1847 when new statutes were enacted. Therefore there may not be a certificate for every Fellow elected in the period 1731 to 1849.

The number of Fellows elected annually varies, and the Statutes have to be changed to accommodate the changed numbers. In 2006 the numbers of Foreign Fellows were raised from 6 to 8, to take effect in 2007 (require amendment of Statute 3 (c) and Standing Orders 22 c) and 26.)

The number of new nominations made in any year is unlimited. Once nominated, candidates remain eligible for election for seven years. If not elected within this period, an individual may be proposed as a candidate again after a break of three years and then remains eligible for election for a period of three years. This three year cycle may be repeated without limit eg there were 564 candidates for election as Fellows in 2005. The Society does not provide details of the identities of nominated candidates to anybody outside the Fellowship, except those individuals consulted in confidence during the refereeing process.

The nominations process was made easier in 2001 by reducing from six to two the number of Fellows signatures required on a certificate of proposal. This change was introduced because it was felt that the larger number of signatures might discriminate against minorities in science, such as women, those in new and emerging subjects or those in institutions and organisations with few existing Fellows.

In addition, the President of the Royal Society periodically writes to Vice-Chancellors, and Chairs and Chief Executives of Research Councils, to encourage them to put forward names of potential candidates. Any suggestions generated through this route are considered before 30 September by the President, Vice-Presidents and one or more members of the Council of the Royal Society. These suggestions, if thought suitable, then follow the normal nomination process, with the proposing and seconding of a candidate by existing Fellows.

The Society has also broadened the scope of candidates to encourage nomination and election of scientists, technologists and engineers whose major contribution to their subject has been other than through original research, for example by leadership, inspiration or furtherance of science in a senior managerial or administrative capacity, or through science communication.

The proposing Fellow is responsible for informing the candidate that he or she has been nominated. The proposer must ensure, in consultation with the candidate, that all information relevant to the nomination is up to date.

Born in Adelaide, Australia, 1898; educated at Kyre College, Adelaide, St. Peter's Collegiate School, Adelaide, and Adelaide University Medical School; worked his passage to England as ship's surgeon to take up a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, 1921-1922; did research work at the invitation of Charles Sherrington at Oxford, 1923; subsequently medical officer to the third Oxford University Arctic Expedition; John Lucas Walker Student, University of Cambridge, 1924; Rockefeller Travelling Fellow in America, studying microsurgical techniques, 1925; Freedom Research Fellow, London Hospital, 1926; Huddersfield Lecturer in Special Pathology, University of Cambridge, 1927; Fellow, Gonville and Caius College; Director Medical Studies, Gonville and Caius; began to study lysozome (discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1922), 1929; Joseph Hunter Professor of Pathology, University of Sheffield, 1932-1935; Professor of Pathology, University of Oxford, 1935-1962; Fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford, 1935; continued research on lysozome, leading to the development of use of penicillin by 1942; Nuffield Visiting Professor to Australia and New Zealand, 1944; involved in the foundation of the Australian National University, Canberra, especially with the design and organisation of the John Curtin School of Medical Research; Knight, 1944; Provost of Queen's College Oxford and resigned Chair of Pathology, 1962; Chancellor of the Australian National University, 1965; received many honours and awards both nationally and internationally; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1941; received the Royal Medal, 1951; gave the Croonian Lecture, 1954; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1951-1953; President, 1960-1965; Nobel Prize (Physiology or Medicine) jointly with Ernst Chain for his work on penicillin, 1945; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1951; Honorary Fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford, 1962; Lister Medal, Royal College of Surgeons, 1945; Berzelius Medal in Silver, Swedish Medical Society, 1945; Albert Medal, Royal Society of Arts, 1946; Medal in therapeutics from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, 1946; Royal Society of Medicine Gold Medal, 1947; USA Medal of Merit, 1948; British Medical Association Gold Medal, 1964; Lomonosov Medal, USSR Academy of Sciences, 1965; Life Peer, 1965; appointed to the Order of Merit, 1965; married, firstly, 1926, Mary Ethel Hayter Reed (d 1966), 1926; married, secondly, Mrs Margaret Jennings, daughter of T F Fremantle, 3rd Baron Cottesloe, 1967; suffered from angina, and died of a heart attack, 1968.

The Journal Book Copy was transcribed retrospectively in the early eighteenth century, and then regularly to the early nineteenth century, for the purpose of greater security.

John Frederick William Herschel was born on 7 March 1792, only child of William Herschel and Mary Baldwin Pitt, widow of a prosperous merchant. After Eton and Dr Gretton's private school at Hitcham and private tutoring in mathematics, Herschel entered St. John's College, University of Cambridge, in 1809, where his exceptional abilities were revealed. He became founding member and first president of the Analytical Society to promote study of continental mathematics at Cambridge. Other members were Charles Babbage (1792-1871), George Peacock (1791-1858) and William Whewell (1791-1866). In 1813 he became Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, was elected to the Royal Society, and became a Fellow of St John's College. He planned for a career in law, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1814, but in 1815 returned to Cambridge as sub-lector, though he found instructing undergraduates not to his liking. In 1816 he began to study astronomy, and left Cambridge to continue his father's observations. By 1820 astronomy had become his chief concern in science. He founded the Astronomical Society in that year, which in 1831 became the Royal Astronomical Society, becoming its President in 1827, 1839 and 1847. He took up the observation of double stars in collaboration with James South, their first catalogue being awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy and a gold medal from the Astronomical Society. His most important contribution to physics in the 1820's was his article 'Light' in 1827. From 1824 to 1827 he was Secretary of the Royal Society, an ideal choice both because of his effectiveness as a correspondent and because he knew personally many leading continental scientists through trips made during the 1820's. His contribution to the philosophy of science was in the publication of his much translated Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, which deeply influenced Charles Darwin and Willliam Whewell, and his Treatise on Astronomy in 1833, a highly successful presentation for the educated public. From 1834 to 1838 he was at the Cape of Good Hope with his family, involved in the detailed survey of the southern celestial hemisphere. In 1839 he made contributions to the development of photographic techniques, for which he was awarded the Royal Medal in 1840. He continued to make contributions to the philosophy of science, with his reviews of Whewell's publications, his role in John Stuart Mill's famous System of Logic of 1842 and his review of Adolphe Quetelet's Theory of Probabilities. Herschel also became involved in the discovery and arbitration of the controversy over the discovery of Neptune in 1846. In 1849 he published his authoritative Outlines of Astronomy, which like his earlier writings had concentrated on the two questions central to his father's researches - what is the structure of the Milky Way and what is the nature of nebulae. The great esteem in which he was held was shown by the honours and positions offered to him, including the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his Cape Results in 1847 and an obelisk erected on the site in South Africa where his telescope had stood. He was Master of the Mint from 1850 to 1854, then returned to writing, publishing Meteorology, Physical Geography and Telescope, originally as articles and then by 1861 as substantial books. During the last 6 years of his life he compiled a catalogue of all known double and multiple star systems, which appeared posthumously in 1874 with final editing by Charles Pritchard and Robert Main. Herschel died on 11 May 1871, being buried in Westminster Abbey next to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton. He had 12 children by Margaret Brodie Stewart, whom he married in 1829. His achievements were recognised with a knighthood in 1831, raised to a baronetcy in 1838.

John Henry Gaddum was born on 31 March 1900 in Hale, Cheshire, the eldest of 6 children. His father was a silk importer who did much charitable work and who had a great influence on his son. He was educated at Miss Wallace's day school in Bowdon, Cheshire, then Moorland House School, Heswall, Cheshire, and from 1913 at Rugby School. He was encouraged to take up science by F A Meyer who later became headmaster of Bedales. He won two leaving exhibitions - one general, one for mathematics. In 1919 he went to Trinity College Cambridge on an entrance scholarship for mathematics, and read medicine. He won a senior scholarship at Trinity in 1922 and obtained second class honours in the Science Tripos (Part II) in Physiology. In 1922 he became a medical student at University College Hospital, London. In 1925 he applied for and won a post at the Wellcome Research Laboratories under J W Trevan, writing his first paper on the quantitative aspects of drug antagonism. In 1927 he went to work for Sir Henry Dale at the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead, where he stayed for six years, then accepted the Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Cairo in 1934. In 1935 he was appointed Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, and in 1938 he took the Chair of Pharmacology at the College of the Pharmaceutical Society, London. After the war broke out, he worked at the Chemical Defence Research Station, Porton Down, then later was for a short time in the Army as Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1942 he accepted the Chair of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, where he was happy and built up an outstanding research department which attracted many scientists from abroad. Extra-mural activities became more time-consuming and in 1958 he was invited to become the Director of the Institute of Animal Physiology in Babraham, Cambridge, by the Agricultural Research Council. He enjoyed learning new things, so accepted the post and staffed the Institute with the finest physiologists, with the result it became one of the great international centres for research in physiology and pharmacology. A year before his death he was knighted and awarded an honorary LL.D, Edinburgh. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1929 he married Iris Mary Harmer, M.B., B.Chir., M.R.C.P., daughter of Sir Sidney Harmer, FRS, a zoologist, and Laura Russell.

Letters sent to the Royal Society, usually Officers or Assistant Secretaries.

Born in Dublin in 1788, Sabine was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He retained his commission, eventually reaching the rank of General - but started scientific work at the end of the Napoleonic wars. He was recommended by the Royal Society to accompany John Ross on an expedition to seek the Northwest Passage in 1818, was with William Edward Parry on his 1819-1820 Arctic expedition, and on a pendulum expedition in 1821-1822 around the Atlantic to determine the true figure of the earth. He was most interested in terrestrial magnetism, in 1826 working with Babbage on the British Isles; in the 1830's he, Humphrey Lloyd, James Clark Ross and others completed the magnetic survey of the British Isles, which he repeated in 1858-1861. His career was distinguished by his successful promotion and administration of a world-wide effort to gather terrestrial magnetism observations, believing in the existence of two magnetic poles and that terrestrial magnetism was essentially the same as atmospheric phenomena. He played a key role both in the dispatching of a British expedition to the southern hemisphere in 1839 to establish a network of magnetic and meteorological observatories, and in its consequencies, motivated by intellectual curiosity and nationalistic zeal. Also, he and Sir John Herschel were in complete agreement on the desirability of seizing this opportunity to advance meteorology. Sabine took over from Lloyd the processing of the data, and between 1841-1861 he maintained a staff at Woolwich for data reduction. He also persuaded the British Association to acquire the King's Observatory at Kew to be the basic geophysical observatory for the Empire, providing standard data and equipment for colonial observations, until in 1871 it was transferred to the Royal Society. Sabine believed that data was not the end in itself, but a preliminary to theory. He was particularly active in the British Association and the Royal Society, shifting programmes from one to the other to gain his objectives, such as the Kew Observatory. He was distressed by the disputes over reforming the Royal Society, and with Grove played a leading reform role which answered the complaints of Davy and Babbage about the election of Fellows. However, he failed to move with the scientific times, in 1863 refusing the demand by younger naturalists for awarding the Copley Medal to Darwin in favour of Adam Sedgwick. Accused by Tyndall of neglecting natural history, he resigned the presidency of the Royal Society in 1871.

Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) was born in Hanover and came to England in 1757, where he taught music in Leeds, Halifax and Bath. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astronomy, built his own telescope in c.1773, and with it discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 (which he named 'Georgium Sidus' in honour of George III). He was appointed private astronomer to George III in 1782 and knighted in 1816, and is regarded as the virtual founder of sidereal science.

Educated at Westminster school with a good grounding in classics, tutored in his vacations in writing and arithmetic. His interest in optics and astronomy led to his study of mathematics as the essential tool for their proper study. He applied his knowledge to other aspects of natural philospohy, especially mechanics, pneumatics, and hydrostatics first at Catherine Hall and thenTrinity College Cambridge, graduating in 1754 as Seventh Wrangler. He was ordained in 1755 and accepted a curacy at Barnet in Hertfordshire, devoting his leisure hours to assisting the Astronomer Royal, James Bradley, in computing tables of refraction. Bradley's influence with the Royal Society sent Maskelyne in 1761 to the island of St Helena to observe the Transit of Venus. This was unsuccessful because of cloud cover. However, he kept tidal records and determined the altered rate of one of Shelton's clocks. His observations regarding the method of determining longitude at sea made on the voyage were more successful. He used the lunar tables of Tobias Mayer which had been submitted in 1755 to support his application for a parliamentary bounty offered for discovery of longitude at sea. The instrument used was a reflecting quadrant of the type invented by John Hadley in 1731. Maskelyne's second voyage, to Bridgetown in Barbados in 1764, was to assess the accuracy of the rival chronometer method of longitude determination championed by John Harrison, and two other methods based on observations of the satellites of Jupiter and on occultations of stars by the moon. He attended the Board of Longitude meeting of 9 February 1765 where the sums to be awarded to Harrison and Mayer were specified, where he testified to the usefulness of the lunar-distance method for finding longitude at sea to within one degree or 60 miles, and proposed the practical application of this method by a nautical ephemeris with auxiliary tables and explanations. This last resulted in the publication of the 'Nautical Almanac' for 1767, which Maskelyne continued to supervise until his death and was his major contribution to astronomical science. He was responsible for the publication of Mayer's lunar theory (1767) his solar and lunar tables (1770) and the preparation of 'Requisite Tables' (1767) for eliminating the effects of astronomical refraction and parallax from the observed lunar distances. As Astronomer Royal he also assessed the large numbers of chronometers submitted for official trial by such pioneers of watchmaking as John Arnold, Thomas Mudge and Thomas Earnshaw. This led to the establishment of a consistent system of rating and the introduction in 1823 of trial or test numbers , modified by George Airy in 1840 to a system which is still used. In 1774 with the aid of Charles Hutton and John Playfair he determined the earth's density in a famous experiment on Mt Schiehallion in Scotland, the first convincing experiment demonstrating the universality of gravitation, meaning it not only operates between the bodies of the solar system but also between the elements of matter of which each body is composed. For this he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1775. He was elected in 1802 one of eight foreign members of the French Institute. He died while working at the Observatory in 1811.

Faraday was born the son of a blacksmith in Newington Butts, Southwark. It is not known where he was educated as a child, but the family moved north near Manchester Square. At 13, he worked as a newspaper boy for George Riebau of Blandford Street. He then became an apprentice for seven years in bookbinding under Riebau. In 1810 and 1811, he attended lectures on science given by silversmith John Tatum (1772-1858) in the city of London and took notes. These were shown to the son of a Member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) who in turn showed them to the Member who was so impressed he gave Faraday tickets to see Humphry Davy (1778-1829) lecture at the RI in 1812. After writing to Davy to ask for a job, he was appointed as a chemical assistant at the laboratory at the RI in 1813. In 1813 he travelled with Davy to France as an assistant, secretary and valet; subsequently visiting laboratories in Italy, Switzerland and Germany until April 1815. In 1816 he began his 'Commonplace Book' and was elected Member of the City Philosophical Society from 1816 to 1819 giving lectures on chemical subjects. From 1816 to 1828, he published his work results in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Science, Philosophical Magazine and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1821 he was appointed Superintendent of the RI to maintain the building. In 1825 he was appointed Director of the Laboratory and in 1833 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the RI. In 1821 he discovered electro-magnetic rotations, the principle of the electric motor. In 1831 he discovered electro-magnetic induction; also in the early 1830s, he discovered the laws of electrolysis and coined words such as electrode, cathode, anode and ion. In 1845 he discovered the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism developing the theory of the electromagnetic field. In 1824 he was elected to the Royal Society. He gave lectures at the RI between 1825 and 1862, establishing the Friday Evening Discourses and the Christmas Lectures for the young. In 1827 he delivered a course of lectures on chemical manipulation to the London Institution and he also gave lectures for medical students from St George's Hospital from the mid 1820s onwards. In 1829 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Admiralty. In 1830 he was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich until 1851. In 1836 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Corporation of Trinity House, the English and Welsh lighthouse authority, until 1865. During the 1850s and 1860s, he introduced electricity to lighthouses under this position. In 1844 he conducted an enquiry with the geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875), into the Haswell Colliery, County Durham, explosion.

Born, 1794; educated, Edinburgh University; commissioned in the Prince of Wales's Edinburgh volunteers, 1810; went to Barbados, 1811; appointed ensign in the York light infantry, a corps which served in the West Indies, 1813; promoted lieutenant, 1815; exchanged into the 2nd West India regiment in Jamaica; posted to Sierra Leone, 1820; captain to the Royal African Colonial Corps, 1822; two successive missions to Forecariah in the coastal country (later Guinea) north of Sierra Leone; transferred to the Gold Coast, 1823; official mission to seek the mouth of the Niger, 1824; died on the mission in 1826.

Robins was born in 1707 in Bath, showing his mathematical ability at an early age. He came to London, teaching himself modern languages and the higher mathematics to prepare himself for teaching. Without help he demonstrated Newton's 'Treatise of Quadratures', published in the Philosophical Transactions, and in 1728 published a masterly confutation of a dissertation by Jean Bernouilli on the laws of motion in bodies impinging on one another. Such fame brought him many students, and he spent some years teaching pure and applied mathematics, until he became bored and became an engineer, devoting himself to making mills, bridges, harbours and making rivers navigable. More importantly, he also studied gunnery and fortification, helped in this by his friend William Ockenden. In 1739 he wrote a number of able political pamphlets in the tory interest, which brought him to political notice, and he was appointed secretary of the committee nominated by the House of Commons to examine and report on the past conduct of Walpole. In 1741 he was unsuccessful in being appointed professor of fortification at the Royal Military Academy established at Woolwich, but in 1742 he published his best known work New Principles of Gunnery which he had begun in support of his candidacy. It was translated into German by Euler, whose critical commentary on it was translated into English, and published by the order of the Board of Ordnance with remarks by Hugh Brown of the Tower of London. The French also translated the 'New Principle' for the Academy of Science in Paris in 1751. He invented the ballistic pendulum, a device for measuring the velocity of a projectile, and communicated to the Royal Society on this and other gunnery topics, including exhibiting various experiments. In 1747 he was awarded the Copley medal. Robins' friend and patron Lord Anson, on his return from the voyage around the world in the 'Centurion', entrusted him with the task of revising his account of the voyage from the journals kept by his chaplain, Richard Walter. This led to a dispute between Robins and Walter as to who actually wrote the published work, though it seems probable it was Robins who revised and edited the work, and was especially entrusted with the second volume containing the nautical observations, which he took to India and could not be found after his death. Lord Anson enabled Robins to continue his experiments in gunnery, whose results were published in the Philosophical Transactions. In 1749 he accepted the post of engineer-general to repair the forts of the East India Company, to Lord Anson's regret, and took with him a complete set of astronomical instruments, as well as instruments for making observations and experiments. On his arrival at Madras in 1750 he designed projects for Fort St. David and the defence of Madras. Following a fever, he died at Fort St. David. His executor, Thomas Lewis, entrusted Dr James Wilson with the publication of his works, which he did in 1761, the publication becoming a text book.

The bonds which for many years were demanded of Fellows as an assurance for the regular payment of their fees to the Royal Society.

The tribute to James Joseph Sylvester, was established as a bronze medal to be awarded triennially for the encouragement of mathematical research.

Born in Aberdour, Fife, 1755; joined the Hudson’s Bay Company as a surgeon and was sent to Albany Fort, on James Bay, 1779; spent five years as Master of Henley House; returned to Albany, where he eventually became Governor; Governor at Churchill for one year; Governor of York Factory, 1802-1807; first Hudson’s Bay Company man to lead an overland journey from Moose Fort to Montreal.