Manchester Memoirs, Vol. I. (1905). 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



By the President^ 



Sir William H. Bailey, 



October jjth, igoS- 



I thank you sincerely for the great distinction you 

 have conferred upon me ; it is no small honour to occupy 

 this chair, and succeed such men as Dr. Dalton, James 

 Prescott Joule, Sir Henry Roscoe, Professor Boyd 

 Dawkins, and the long list of those distinguished in 

 the history of science and literature, who have preceded 

 me. 



This Society, established in the year 1781, may be 

 considered the first Manchester Technical Institution for 

 the education, for the culture of its own members at its 

 own cost ; it is an Academy of adult persons. The 

 Society originated in a few gentlemen meeting in a weekly 

 club some time before the year 1781 who conversed on 

 Literature and Philosophy, as Science was then called. 



Our early volumes of memoirs are of very great 

 antiquarian and historical interest. In them we may see 

 many questions that have agitated the minds of our 

 members of 125 years ago, and that many reforms our 

 members advocated, which no doubt influenced public 

 opinion, are now the law of the land. 



The 1 8th Century was a brilliant period. It was the 

 seed time of England's commercial supremacy. 



The mind of man was beginning to endow the body 

 of man. Leisure from the mere ministry to man's neces- 



December, iQO^. 



