136 THE PKESIDENCY OF THE EOYAL SOCIETY 



Whitworth 1 gave £2000, Sir W. G. Armstrong 2 (afterwards Lord 

 Armstrong) £1000, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. De la Eue, 

 Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, Dr. Siemens, 3 and the Earl 

 of Derby, £500 each, and Dr. Gladstone 4 £250. The remainder 

 was contributed by thirty-two Fellows of the Society. 



Thanks to the fund thus raised, new Fellows were relieved 

 of the entrance fee and paid an annual subscription of only £3. 

 No man henceforth need be kept outside the Society on the 

 score of money. 



To Hooker's administrative work at Kew was now added 

 tjie ordinary administrative work which falls to the P.E.S., not 

 to mention the fact that he was furthermore ex officio a Trustee 

 of the British Museum. Council days are described by him as 

 ' great pulls, 1-6 p.m. continuous — then dinner, followed by the 

 Meeting at 8|.' The internal affairs of the K.S. covered a wide 

 range of business, on this occasion including a long negotia- 

 tion with the Treasury as to the tenure of the rooms at Burling- 



1 Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-87), the mechanical genius who deliberately 

 set himself to become a perfect craftsman by entering one great engineering shop 

 after another as a workman, thereafter setting up as a toolmaker in Manchester. 

 His great discovery of how to make a truly plane surface was the basis of a 

 device for ensuring the accuracy to 10 ooo of an inch of his standard measures 

 and gauges, which revolutionised engineering. His new rifle and cannon, the 

 result of patient experiment at the request of the Board of Ordnance, anticipatec 

 modern developments, but were rejected by the officials. After this ' Battle 

 of the guns ' Whitworth made his other great discovery in the forging of stee 

 under hydraulic pressure when fluid. His patient thoroughness in scientific 

 investigation has been compared to Darwin's. He became F.R.S. in 1857 

 The bulk of his great fortune was finally devoted to educational and charitabh 

 purposes. 



2 Sir William George Armstrong (1810-1900; knight 1859, baron 1887 

 applied his mechanical genius to many inventions, especially in hydraulit 

 machinery and the manufacture of guns, and was the founder and organiser o ' 

 the great Elswick Works at Newcastle. Elected F.R.S. in 1846, he continue* 

 his scientific researches not only in mechanics, but also in electrical science 

 He was President of the British Association in 1863 when it met at Newcastle 



3 Sir William Siemens (1823-83), metallurgist, electrician and inventoi 

 Three of his brothers, like himself, turned to the practical applications of science 

 In 1843 he left Hanover to dispose of an electroplating invention in England v 

 becoming naturalised in 1859. With his name are associated such divers I 

 inventions as a water-meter, the regenerative furnace, insulation for submarin I 

 cables, the dynamo, as well as the application of electric lighting. He wa 

 President of the British Association in 1882. 



4 John Hall Gladstone, Ph.D., F.R.S. (1827-1902), chemist and physicisi . 

 was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution 1874-7 ; President of th 

 Physical Society 1874-6 and of the Chemical Society 1877-9. At this time h 

 was also a member of the London School Board. 



