254 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks 1817 



foresight the British Empire owes the possession of that im- 

 portant centre the island of Singapore. His visit to England 

 at this time may have been in connection with his work 

 on the " History of Java," which was published this year. 

 The Royal Society availed itself of the occasion of his being 

 in this country to elect him a Fellow on 26th March. When 

 in 1824 he finally quitted the East, the vessel in which he was 

 returning home took fire, and all his papers, maps and 

 immense collections were destroyed. He did not long survive 

 this irreparable loss. Living in retirement he yet interested 

 himself in the foundation of the Zoological Society, of which 

 he was chosen the first president. He died in 1826 at the 

 age of only forty-five. His patriotic services were com- 

 memorated by the placing of a statue of him in Westminster 

 Abbey. 



Charles Babbage, at this time only twenty-five years of 

 age, dined twice with the Club in the course of the spring. 

 He took his M.A. degree at Cambridge this year, but his 

 mathematical genius had already manifested itself, and he 

 had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on March 

 14, 1816. He was for eleven years Lucasian Professor of 

 Mathematics at Cambridge, but did not lecture. He will 

 be remembered as a laborious mechanician who spent thirty- 

 seven years and most of his fortune in trying to perfect 

 and complete his calculating machine. 



Francis Chantrey, the eminent sculptor, dined with the 

 Club this summer, appeared frequently afterwards, and was 

 eventually elected a member. He was evidently a favourite 

 not only at the Club but with the Fellows of the Society 

 at large, for he was elected into their number in the spring 

 of 1818. 



William Scoresby and his son, both of Arctic renown, 

 were the guests of the President on i8th December. The 

 father went to sea when he was twenty, was taken prisoner 

 by the Spaniards, but eventually engaged in the Greenland 

 whale-fishery, and by his success and the knowledge he 

 acquired of the northern regions, led the way in Arctic ex- 

 ploration. The son, who had the same name, inherited a 



