10 Haldane Gee — Henry Wilde 



closely identified with the history of the method of generating" 

 electricity ... I shall be pleased to defray the cost of wiring 

 up and supplying the necessary fittings in the parts of the house 

 where gas can be replaced with advantage by the electric light." 

 This was followed by other gifts. For two years (1894- 1896) he 

 was President of the Society. During this period " with the 

 object of maintaining the high character which the Society has 

 so long held in the estimation of the scientific world and to 

 increase still further its means of usefulness," he had decided 

 to endow the Society with ^8,000 to be devoted to the following 

 and other purposes: — (i) to provide the salary of an assistant 

 secretary and librarian; (2) to award a gold medal, a premium, 

 and to provide an honorarium for a yearly lecture; (3) to com- 

 pensate for the loss of income due to the abolition of an entrance 

 fee; and (4) to remit half or the whole amount of the subscrip- 

 tions of fifteen members.* 



In 1902 he gave the Wilde lecture " On the Evolution of the 

 Mental Faculties in relation to some Fundamental Principles of 

 Motion." 



Belief actions and Gifts. 



In addition to Dr. Wilde s liberality to the Society, and in accor- 

 dance with his resolve to dispose of the greater part of his 

 capital during his life-tirne, he made important benefactions to 

 other institutions. To the Paris Academie des Sciences in 1897 he 

 gave ^5,500, the annual interest of which was to be applied as 

 a prize for the author of a discovery or work in Astronomy^ 

 Physics, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Geology or Mechanics. The 

 prize was to be international and retrospective. In 1900 he con- 

 tributed ^1,500 to the Benevolent Fund of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers. The University of Oxford has most of all 

 been favoured. In 1898 Wilde gave ^10,000 to the University 

 to institute a Readership in Mental Philosophy, and a further 

 sum of ^;3,ooo to establish a scholarship to be called the John 

 Locke Scholarsliip for Mental Philosophy. In 1908 Wilde 

 founded a Lectureship in Natural and Comparative Rehgion, the 

 endowment being ^4,000. In the following year he provided ^600 

 for the purpose of founding an annual lecture on Astronomy and 

 Terrestrial Magnetism, in honour and memory of Edmund H alley, 

 sometime Professor of Geometry and Astronomer Royal. By his 

 will Henry Wilde bequeathed the residue of his estate, after some 

 bequests, to the University of O.xford : the sum amounted to 

 about ;^ 1 0,000. 



The full extent of his benefactions and gifts cannot be com- 

 pletely recorded. He presented to the Science Museum, South 

 Kensington, a magnetarium, a separately-excited and a multipolar 

 dynamo, and a set of ABC instruments. To Oxford Uni- 

 versity were given a Crossley gas engine, a Wilde's early type 

 dynamo, and two multipolar machines and other electrical 



• Some of tliese conditions are not now in operation. 



