THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY 325 



THE LECTURE THEATRE 



Clause five of the " Memorandum of Provisions" 

 agreed to by the Government and the Society in 

 March 1877, as a preliminary to the passing of the 

 Science and Art Museum Act, provided that : "The 

 Lecture Hall, Laboratory, and the necessary offices 

 were to be reserved to the Society, or an equivalent 

 provided." 



The old buildings referred to were of humble 

 origin. In May 1815, a few weeks before the Society 

 moved from Hawkins street to Leinster House, a 

 committee reported "that the outbuilding called the 

 kitchen (at Leinster House) could be appropriated, 

 with the necessary alterations, to the purposes of a 

 laboratory and theatre, with the apartments for the 

 professors' apparatus." The alterations were com- 

 pleted shortly afterwards, and for 78 years the trans- 

 formed kitchen served the purposes of a laboratory and 

 lecture theatre. In 1836, Mr. Isaac Weld, in giving 

 evidence before a select committee of the House of 

 Commons, said, in answer to a question about the 

 theatre and laboratory : " There is a small range of 

 furnaces and sand baths in the theatre for the purpose 

 of exhibiting some chemical processes ; there is adjoin- 

 ing to it a large laboratory besides ; and also another 

 room for the finer apparatus, and for nicer experiments 

 which Mr. Davy may be particularly engaged in him- 

 self, secluded and kept apart for himself, that he may 

 not be interrupted." He also said that the laboratory 

 was a good one, " the chemical apparatus extensive, 

 some of it fine. The galvanic battery is of a very 

 superior description." 



The lapse of half a century brought about great 

 changes ; ideas about the requirements of a theatre had 



