| 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: Heinrich Debus; Peter Martin Duncan; Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton; George Carey Foster; Francis Galton; John Peter Gassiot; William Huggins; George Murray Humphry; John Gwyn Jeffreys; Sir John Lubbock; William Hallowes Miller; William Sharpey; Charles William Siemens; Henry John Stephen Smith; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; John Tyndall; Alexander William Williamson; the President, General Sir Edward Sabine, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Report of the Government Grant Committee, in the form of minutes of a meeting of 13 June 1871, full text entered into the minutes: list of applications for grants, and, following discussion, a list of grants provisionally offered for approval, to various individuals, and to a total of £405. Draft of a statute on the Royal Society being forbidden from giving dividends, gifts, or other possible rewards to Fellows, agreed upon and to be read at a subsequent meeting. The Treasurer read a memorandum on the proposed Deed of Trust of the fund offered by Mr. Gassiot for maintaining Kew Observatory, Gassiot offering securities of £10,000: these to be managed by a Committee nominated by the Royal Society and if discontinued, the Trust Funds would be paid over to the Treasurer of the London Middle-Class School; Messrs. Few and Company instructed to prepare a Deed in conformity with the memorandum. In reply to his letter of 10 December 1870, Mr. Hirst to be informed that the President and Council of Royal Society were prepared to take possession of Kew Observatory on the terms presently held by the British Association. Additions to the list of candidates for the award of the Copley Medal. List of candidates in the adjudication of Royal Society Medals proposed and seconded, with brief citations. List of institutions recommended by the Library Committee for grants of exchanges of publications. The Canton manuscripts belonging to the Royal Society, loaned to James Yates, had been returned by Mrs. Yates, bound in a volume at Mr. Yates direction and expense: an addition of 'Prolegomena' had been added, with the additional gift of a volume of correspondence, printed material and illustrations of Joseph Priestley, thanks given. Captain Herschel granted an extension of time for admission into the Fellowship. Leave granted to Mr. Chambers to copy the introduction to his paper on terrestrial magnetism at Bombay, now in the archives. Leave granted to A. Wollaston Franks to take a watercolour copy of the portrait of William Hyde Wollaston. The Treasurer authorised to pay bills for lithography and coals during recess. All Library books to be returned by 31 July and none given out in August. Leave of absence granted to the Assistant Secretary. List of bills for payment, for binding, paper and advertising. |