| 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: Major-General John Theophilus Boileau; Edward Cardwell, Viscount Cardwell; Warren De La Rue; Edward Frankland; Albert Gunther; Joseph Norman Lockyer; Reverend Robert Main; William Pole; Bartholomew Price; Warington Wilkinson Smyth; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; Alexander William Williamson; the President, Joseph Dalton Hooker, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Death of the Reverend Joseph Bosworth. The President had communicated with the Treasury on the issue of income tax, but had received no reply as yet. The President had an interview with Lord Sandon on the subject of an increase to £5,000 for the Government Grant, resulting in the following communication. Letter from Dudley Ryder, Viscount Sandon, Science and Art Department, South Kensington, 29 May 1876, to Joseph Dalton Hooker, full text entered into the minutes: noting their agreement that conditions for the original £1,000 Government Grant should remain unchanged, and that new arrangements should apply to the additional £4,000 only; if recommendations of the Council of the Royal Society could not be acted upon in their entirity, Council might be given an opportunity to revise them; reporting will be necessary for Parliament, but need not be in great detail and Sandon appreciates the difficulties in direct encouragement of research, but reckons on the cordial co-operation of the Royal Society. Proposed by Mr. De La Rue and seconded by Dr. Williamson that the division of £1,000 and £4,000 proposed by Sandon be accepted and that in the event of Council's proposals regarding the £4,000 grant not being accepted by the Committee of Council of on Education, the Society should have the opportunity to review them. Mr. Disraeli's admission at an Ordinary Meeting proving impossible because of Parliamentary duties, the President has given permission for him to be admitted today, at the annual meeting for elections. |