| 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: Lionel Smith Beale; William Bowman; Commander Frederick John Owen Evans; Edward Frankland; Francis Galton; John Peter Gassiot; John Edward Gray; Thomas Archer Hirst; Sir Henry Holland; William Allen Miller; William Hallows Miller; William Odling; Sir John Rennie; William Sharpey; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; Count Paul Edmund de Strzelecki; Sir William Page Wood; the President, Lieutenant-General Edward Sabine, in the Chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. New Members of Council made and subscribed to the declaration in lieu of the oath. Reappointment of the Library Committee, with list of members and terms of reference. List of Fellows appointed to the Government Grant Committee. Report of the Treasurer on the financial state of the Royal Society, 21 December 1865, full text entered into the minutes. Ordered that the continuation of the correspondence with the Board of Trade on magnetism in ships was to be published in the Proceedings. Letters from Few and Company were read, referring to rights of common claimed for Old Oak Common at Acton, no further action to be taken. Mr. Stokes reported that the total outlay on the Cataklogue of Scientific Memoirs was £1625 12s. 7d.: £200 to be placed with the Library Committee to meet Catalogue expenses to the end of 1866. Mr. Clerk Maxwell appointed Bakerian Lecturer. Request from the Marquess of Donegall, Colonel of the London Irish Regiment of Volunteers, to use the Society's Meeting Room for the distribution of prizes: granted, if the date and time can be accommodated. Volumes 5-6 of the Proceedings presented to the Library of the University of Cambridge. Letter from Roy and Cartwright, 4 Lothbury, London, 6 December 1865, to the Treasurer of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on a bequest to the Royal Society of £4,000 by Benjamin Oliveira, with an extract from the will; noting that there would not be sufficient to pay legacies and the matter is being administered by the Court of Chancery, the Royal Geographical Society being parties. Letter from Few and Company, Covent Garden, 11 December 1865, to Walter White, full text entered into the minutes: a report on the Oliveira legacy, concluding that the Royal Society should be separately represented in the case of the legality of the bequest; Few and Company should be requested to enter and appearence and watch the case on behalf of the Society. |