| Reference number | NLB/1/368 |
| Alternative reference number | NLB/1 p268-269 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Copy letter from George Gabriel Stokes, to the Secretary, the Treasury |
| Date | 25 January 1887 |
| Description | Stokes as President of the Royal Society acknowledges the Secretary's letter of 17 January [1887] in reply to his letter relative to the grant of Parliament towards the expenses of the Solar Eclipse Expedition.
When the Government Grant was increased from £1000 to £4000 the Lords enlarged the Government Grant Committee by the addition of a considerable number of Presidents of Scientific Societies, who may or may not have been Royal Society Fellows. This was presumably intended to give the nation more complete confidence in the administration of the Grant and in accordance with this the Royal Society has alway been very careful to recognise the independent position of the Government Grant Committee. The $4000 does appear in the estimates as a vote in aid to the Society but as appears from former correspondence with the Treasurer, it was put in this shape for formal reasons, which Stokes discusses.
The rules as to applications for aid from the Grant do not give the Society any special power of making applications for aid. Stokes thinks that the Society has always accorded to the independent status of the Grant Committee and hitherto the two bodies have worked in full harmony. If however this treatment of the Committee is a mistake and the Society is not only to act as an intermediary between the Grant Committee and the Lords Commissioners of Treasury, but to completely dominate the Committee, it should feel obliged by an official statement to this effect for communication to the Grant Committee.
With reference to the concluding part of Stokes' letter of 28 December 1886, he would like to know if he is to interpret the Secretary's letter of 17th as a refusal by the Lords to contribute anything further out of the vote of £500, or as permission to the Royal Society's Treasurer to apply before the end of the financial year for the residue, which he regrets to say will all be required. |
| Extent | 2p |
| Format | Carbon |
| Access status | Open |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA8283 | Stokes; Sir; George Gabriel (1819 - 1903); physicist | 1819 - 1903 |