28 RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



assistance as one of the Council of the Royal Society.' To this 

 proposal the President (Sir Christopher Wren) and the Council 

 assented, and a sum of l,300 was paid in recompense for the 

 surrender. Thus the ground on which Chelsea Hospital stands 

 was once the property of the Royal Society. 



But even after the Chelsea College and ground had been 

 promised, and before the property was repurchased by the King, 

 the Fellows f of the Society contemplated the erection of their 

 future home on a more central site. Mr. Henry Howard having 

 offered to present a portion of ground for the erection of a college 

 on the land near Arundel House, Committees were formed at the 

 beginning of the year 1667-8 for the purpose of collecting funds 

 for the building. On the 24th of January of that year, as Evelyn 

 narrates, ' we went to stake out ground for building a college for 

 the Royal Society at Arundel House, but did not finish it ; which 

 we shall repent of.' A few months later he states : ' 2nd April, 

 1668. To the Royal Society, where I subscribed 50,000 bricks 

 towards building a College.' In the course of a few months a con- 

 siderable sum of money was subscribed, and two plans for the 

 building, one by Mr. Howard and the other by Mr.Hooke,were sub- 

 mitted. But there appear to have been some legal difficulties as to 

 the title of the ground. At all events, the scheme was allowed to 

 drop, and the Society continued to meet under the hospitable roof 

 of Arundel House for five years more. At last the new Exchange 

 was completed and Gresham College became once more available. 



On December 1, 1673, Evelyn made the following entry in his 

 Diary : ' To Gresham College whither the City had invited the 

 Royal Society by many of their chief aldermen and magistrates, 

 who gave us a collation, to welcome us to our first place of 

 assembly, from whence we had been driven to give place to the 

 City on their making it their Exchange, on the dreadful confla- 

 gration, till their new Exchange was finished, which it now was.' 



Though it was doubtless in many respects of advantage to re- 

 occupy their old quarters in Gresham College, the desirability of 

 having premises of their own in which they could accommodate 

 their growing library and continually increasing collection of 

 * rarities ' was not lost sight of. Moreover, as years went on, 

 circumstances arose which made the tenancy of the rooms at 



