3o 4 A HISTORY OF 



The Society's final triumph was due to the justice of 

 its cause and the dogged determination of one man — 

 George Johnstone Stoney. 



The Second Supplemental Charter and Statutes 



Under the original charter of April the 2nd, in the 

 23rd year of Geo. II (1750), the general management 

 of the business of the Society was vested in the 

 corporation, any seven of whom constituted a 

 quorum. 



In 1836 a select committee of the House of 

 Commons recommended, among other things, " That 

 the management of the ordinary business of the 

 Society should be confided to a Council." The Society 

 assented, and the following by-law was adopted : " The 

 management of the business of the Society shall be 

 confided to a Council, whose powers are strictly, as 

 hereafter, defined and limited, and subject to direct 

 control over its proceedings, upon the part of the 

 Society at large." 



Some years later the authority of this Council was 

 disputed, when an officer of the Society maintained that 

 the Council had not the power to dismiss him, and 

 other difficulties of a similar kind arose. In 1862, a 

 Commission appointed by the Treasury expressed the 

 opinion that full powers ought to be vested in an 

 Executive Council acting on behalf of the Society. 

 The Commission held that the Government could not 

 properly entrust the administration of public funds to 

 the existing Council, whose decisions were liable to be 

 reversed by a popular vote. 



The principles to be embodied in a supplemental 

 charter, in furtherance of the views of the Commission, 

 were agreed to at a conference in South Kensington in 



