NA TURE 



25 



THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1889. 



THE ESTATE OF HER MAJESTY'S 

 COMMISSIONERS OF 1851. 



UNDER this heading the Times has announced 

 that "a Sub-Committee of the Commissioners, 

 amongst the members of which are Lord Thring, Sir Lyon 

 Playfair, Mr. Childers, M.P., and Mr. Mundella, M.P., 

 held a meeting on Saturday last to adopt a final report 

 upon the disposal of this Estate which should be sub- 

 mitted for the approval of the Royal Commissioners them- 

 selves." The Commissioners have determined to let out 

 a considerable part of their Estate to house builders, and 

 the Sub-Committee had before them, on Saturday last, 

 tenders for building leases. If the Commissioners accept 

 these tenders, they will add some ^10,000 a year to their 

 income. This notion of sacrificing the Estate to builders 

 of private houses has been known for some months ; and, 

 with the view of demonstrating against so short-sighted, 

 not to say utterly immoral, a poHcy, a Memorial has been 

 framed and circulated. We have received a copy of it, 

 and, entirely acquiescing in its object, we print it in extenso. 

 It runs as follows : — 



To His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K.G., &*€., 

 Gr^c. , President of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the 

 Exhibition of 1 85 1. 



,-^. ^, • 1 i- .1 J • J [Here fill in name of 



The Memorial from the undersigned chamber of Commerce, 



on behalf of 



Corporation, (juild or 

 Educational Institution. 



Sheweth 

 (i) That in the year 1851 a large surplus profit accrued 

 after the conclusion of the Exhibition of 1851. 



(2) That this surplus profit was for the most part 

 expended by Her Majesty s Commissioners for the Exhi- 

 bition of 1851 in the purchase of a considerable Estate of 

 land at Kensington, for the erection of public institutions, 

 and generally to benefit the country's Arts, Sciences, 

 Manufactures, and Commerce. 



(3) That various public institutions, such as the South 

 Kensington Museum, the Training School of Science and 

 Art, the Natural History Museum, the Royal College of 

 Music, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Imperial Institute, 

 have been or are in course of being built upon this 

 Estate. 



(4) That fine open spaces intervene between the various 

 institutions, to provide for further extensions of them, and 

 give them proper light and air. 



(5) That Sir Lyon Playfair, M.P., as Secretary to Her 

 Majesty's Commissioners, recently stated in the House of 

 Commons that a large portion of these fine open spaces 

 between the public institutions already named was to be 

 leased for the erection of private houses and mansions. 



(6) That, in the opinion of Your Royal Highness's 

 Memorialists, this crowding upon the public institutions 

 of private houses and mansions is adverse to the interests 

 of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, and Commerce, and 

 foreign to the intentions of Her Majesty's Commissioners, 

 publicly announced, when they purchased the land, and 

 also subsequently. 



(7) That, in the opinion of Your Royal Highness's 

 Memorialists, this crowding upon the public institutions 

 to benefit Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, and Commerce, 

 of private houses and mansions is in confiict with the last 

 public announcement in respect of the future of the 

 Estate which H.R.H. the late Prince Consort made 

 within six months of his lamented death. 



Your Memorialists, therefore, respectfully pray that 

 Vol. XL.— No. 1019. 



Your Royal Highness, as President of Her Majesty's 

 Commissioners, will prevent the public institutions on the 

 Estate of Her Majesty's Commissioners from being 

 crowded upon by private ht)uses and mansions, and will 

 induce Her Majesty's Commissoners to preserve intact 

 those unalloted portions of their Estate in order that they 

 may be placed to the great public uses for which the 

 Estate was destined by Her Majesty's Commissioners and 

 their President, Your Royal Highness's illustrious father, 

 the lamented Prince Consort. 



The Times, commenting upon the effe:t of the Com- 

 missioners' scheme for filling up their Estate with private 

 houses, says that "the irregular blocks of variegated private 

 houses " will more or less overwhelm and hedge in " such 

 National Institutions for Science and Art as the Estate 

 may ultimately contain." 



From time to time the Commissioners' various pro- 

 posals for dealing with their Estate have been publicly 

 criticized, with the useful result that such of the pro- 

 posals as were in the nature of distinct departures from 

 the original intentions set forth at the time the Estate 

 passed into their keeping, have been modified or 

 dropped. 



Twelve years or so ago, some representatives of the 

 original subscribers, whose aid in 185 1 virtually placed a 

 large portion of the surplus funds at the disposal of the 

 Commissioners, urged that unallotted portions of the 

 Estate should be sold to meet expenses in founding pro- 

 vincial galleries or museums for science and art. For 

 good reasons, the Commissioners did not give way to 

 these plausible representations. They said at that time 

 that, under the guidance of the Prince Consort, "we 

 purchased the estate to provide an extensive site for 

 the development of great institutions for the promotion 

 of industrial art and science amongst the manufacturing 

 populatioti'' At this very time, and, as was stated in 

 Nature of May 2, p. 3, the Commissioners proposed 

 certain conditions to the Government, under which they 

 (the Commissioners) would raise ^100,000 as a contri- 

 bution towards erecting a Museum of Scientific Instru- 

 ments, a Science Library, and Laboratories of Scientific 

 Research and Instruction. This proposal, which was not 

 entertained however by the Government of the day, con- 

 tained provisions for keeping the main parts of the 

 Estate free for the development of national institutions. 

 The reasons for keeping the main portions of the Estate 

 at liberty in this way have since remained every whit as 

 strong as they were then. Indeed they are stronger than 

 ever, in the face of Government action now being taken 

 in respect of the " National Science Museum." But a 

 malign influence supervened. It was but a week before 

 Christmas last year, when Mr. G. Samuelson asked a 

 question in the House of Commons, that Sir Lyon 

 Playfair stated that Her Majesty's Commissioners for 

 the Exhibition of 185 1 were arranging to dispose of 

 considerable plots of land on their Estate to house 

 builders, in order that the Commissioners might in- 

 crease their income by obtaining ground-rents from 

 private houses, and that the Commissioners did not 

 intend to publish their reasons for this. Is Sir Lyon 

 Playfair's assurance in thus apparently setting public 

 opinion at defiance to be ascribed to a sense of relief from 

 further responsibility which he may have derived from his 

 resignation of the secretaryship to the Commissioners ? 



c 



