| Description | Printed minutes containing matters laid before Council, the Royal Society's governing body of Fellows, with records of decisions taken.
Commencing with a list of Council members present: William Benjamin Carpenter; Arthur Cayley; William Fairbairn; John Miers; William Allen Miller; General Edward Sabine; Rear-Admiral William Henry Smyth; John Stenhouse; George Gabriel Stokes; the President, John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Report of the Government Grant Committee on applications for grants: the applications listed, discussed, and a list of grants recommended to Council was approved. The Secretary made an application on behalf of Sir John Herschel for the loan of some powerful horse-shoe magnets: the large compound magnet now at Kew should be lent for the purpose. Letter from John Phillips, London, 1 July 1856, to [the Royal Society], full text entered into the minutes: transmitting a resolution of the Council of the British Association regarding the supply of gas to Kew Observatory; a sum of £250 from the Donation Fund to be granted for the purpose. Dr. Stenhouse gave notice that he would move at the next meeting that remuneration for the Bakerian and Croonian Lecturers should be raised to 25 guineas. Letter from S.W. Wayte, Oxford University Commission, 17 Great Queen Street, Westminster, 7 July 1856, to Lord Wrottesley, President of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: it is proposed to establish a Professorship of Physiology, the Board of Electors for which would include the President of the Royal Society. Note that six years had passed since the Government had granted £1,000 to the Royal Society to be employed in the promotion of science: a Parliamentary Committee had been appointed for next session to consider measures which might be adopted to improve science; resolved that it would be expedient to give the attention of Council to the question at the early period of the next session, and that the matter should also be referred to the Government Grant Committee. |