4 CHAIRMAN’S PREFACE. 
Pages 26 to 32 of the Reports contain a list of Free Lectures given 
in the year which cannot, I believe, be equalled in any other City. 
The fact that 168 Lectures were given, with an average attendance of 
425 per Lecture, is very satisfactory, in view of the many counter 
attractions of a less intellectual character now provided in the evening 
in all parts of the City. 
Liverpool was the Pioneer of the Free Lecture movement, as she 
has been in so many other spheres of social progress, and it is intended 
this year to mark, in some appropriate way, the 50th anniversary of the 
first Municipal Free Lecture given in our City. 
In the Museums, too, 24 Free Lectures were delivered, all of which 
were well attended, the special object there being to bring under 
public notice the many valuable and interesting collections in those 
buildings. The official recognition of the importance of the educational 
side of Museum work, by the British Association, in appointing a Special 
Committee on the subject, of which our Curator, Dr. Clubb, was made 
a Joint Secretary, is a notable forward step in Museum progress. Much 
good ought to result from the deliberations and conclusions of that 
Committee. 
The list of additions to the Museum Collections during the year, 
embracing over 4,000 separate objects, mostly gifts from Travellers and 
Explorers, affords once more gratifying proof of the general esteem in 
which the Institution is held. The transfer to the Museum last year, 
from the Town Hall and the Municipal Offices, of various objects which 
have been stored there for generations, gives the public of Liverpool 
the opportunity, for the first time, of seeing many interesting relics of 
the City’s past history. 
Iu the Art Gallery, the problem of exhibiting the Permanent 
Collection as it ought to be shown, and at the same time finding room 
for the Autumn Exhibition of Contemporary Art, has not yet been 
solved, and cannot be so until the much-needed extension of the 
(Galleries has been carried out. The legacy of £10,000, bequeathed by 
the will of the late Mr. Thomas Bartlett, for this purpose, has not yet 
