08 Royal Society .-^-Anniversary Address of the President : 



Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, member of the Royal Academy and 

 a distinguislied architect, was a member of a family which has long 

 been honourably connected with the arts. He was born in 1766, 

 and acquired a knowledge of his profession under the instructions 

 of his father and uncle, and was subsequently employed, during 

 many years, in the somewhat ambiguous capacity of architect and 

 builder in the execution of many considerable works. In ISSi he 

 was selected by George IV., to whom he had been formerly known, 

 to design and superintend the magnificent alterations and additions 

 to Windsor Castle, a truly royal and national work, in which he 

 succeeded in combining uncommon external grandeur and strict 

 architectural propx'iety with great convenience and splendour of 

 internal arrangements. Sir Jeifrey Wyattville, besides many im- 

 portant original works, made very extensive additions to the princi- 

 pal mansions of our nobility, including Chatsworth, Longleat, Wo- 

 burn. Badminton, and Ashridge. He was a man of sound judg- 

 ment and great integrity, and was very generally beloved for the 

 remarkable simplicity and frankness of his manners, his great kind- 

 ness of heart, and cheerful and unaffected good humour. He died 

 in February last, and was buried in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, 

 in a vault which he had himself prepared for the reception of the 

 remains of a beloved daughter, who died in the flower of her age. 



Captain Charles Phillipps, of the Royal Navy, was the author 

 of several inventions of great value in navigation, and in the equip- 

 ment and management of ships : such are his methods of suspending 

 compasses so as to avoid concussions in time of action ; his improve- 

 ment of the pump-dale of ships, and more particularly the capstan, 

 which bears his name, and which is in general use in the Navy. He 

 was an active and enterprising officer, who had seen much service 

 during the last Mar, had been eminently successful in rescuing 

 slaves off the coast of Africa, and had nearly fallen a victim, in 

 common with the greatest part of his crew, to that pestilential cli- 

 mate. 



Sir Robert Seppinos received hiseducation as a shipwright under 

 the late Sir John Henslow, Surveyor of the Navy, and continued 

 in connexion witii the important service of our dock-yards during a 

 period of fiftj'^ years. He was the author of many important im- 

 provements in our naval architecture, including his system of dia- 

 gonal bracing and trussing, which formed the subject of two memo- 

 rable Papers in our Transactions in the years 1814-* and 1818 t> and 

 whicii attracted an unusual amount of public attention. The great 

 principle of this method was such an arrangement of the principal 

 timbers as would oppose a powerful mechanical action to every 

 change of position of the ribs and other timbers in every part of 

 the ship ; thus firmly compacting together the entire fabric, and 



* On a New Principle of Constructing His Majesty's Ships of War. — 

 Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 28. [See Phil. Mag. First Series, vol. xliii. pp. 228. 

 305 ; vol. xlv. p. 374. 



t On the great strength given to Ships of War by the application of 

 Diagonal Braces. — Phil. Trans. 1818, p. 1, 



