282 RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



Royal Society for the advancement of science be not necessarily limited to the 

 annual Grant of 1,000, when on any occasion special reasons may be assigned 

 for an additional sum '. No such increase of the Grant was made, however, 

 until nearly twenty years later, when (on April 29, 1876) a letter was received 

 from the Lord President of the Council proposing ' that further aid should be 

 given to research by according permission to the Government Grant Committee 

 to recommend in certain cases the payment of personal allowances to gentlemen 

 during the time they are engaged in their investigations ; that a sum of ,5,000, 

 including the above-mentioned .1,000, should be taken annually; that the 

 Royal Society should be invited to aid Her Majesty's Government with their 

 advice and assistance in its appropriation and expenditure, and as to the sums 

 to be granted in each case, reporting annually to the Lords of the Committee 

 of Council on Education on the progress made and the desirability or non- 

 desirability of renewing the Grant ; and that this experiment should be tried 

 for five years '. The Lord President further proposed that * the administration 

 and expenditure of the Grant, and accountability for it, should be vested in the 

 Science and Art Department, that all instruments purchased for investigations 

 should be left in its charge when no longer required ', and that the presidents 

 of certain societies * should be ex-offldo members of the Government Grant 

 Committee '. 



After some correspondence, it was finally agreed that the Grant of ,1,000 

 should remain as before, and that a vote of "4,000 should be taken on the 

 conditions expressed in the Lord President's letter. For five years these two 

 Grants ran concurrently, the Grant of 1,000 being known as ' The Government 

 Grant', and the Grant of 4,000 as 'The Government Fund'. 



Four Sub-Committees were appointed to consider applications and report 

 upon them .to the General Committee, namely : A. Mathematics, Physics, 

 and Astronomy. B. Biology. C. Chemistry. D. General Purposes. 



The General Committee, which was now called the Government Fund 

 Committee, was constituted in the same way as before, with the addition of 

 several more ex-officio members, the Presidents of the following societies 

 forming the ex-officio list: The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Royal Irish 

 Academy, Royal Astronomical Society, Mathematical Society, Chemical 

 Society, Linnean Society, Zoological Society, Geological Society, Physical 

 Society, Institution of Civil Engineers, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 

 General Council of Medical Education, Royal College of Physicians, Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and the British Association. It was further agreed on 

 November 30, 1877, that the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Irish 

 Academy should each send an additional representative besides the President. 

 The Committee, thus constituted, reported to the Council, with whom lay the 

 final decision upon the recommendations. 



On January 11, 1877, the Council received and adopted a code of Regulations 

 which had been drawn up by the General Purposes Sub-Committee. To these 



