270 Presidentship of W. H. Wollaston 1820 



ship of the Club. Lord Macclesfield was the grandson of 

 the second Earl, for so many years President of the Royal 

 Society and of the Club. He was thus the fourth holder 

 of the title. He became F.R.S. in 1818. 



The Earl of Aberdeen had already dined with the Club 

 (p. 239) and he now frequently attended the weekly meet- 

 ings. Since he first came as a guest he had taken a promi- 

 nent part in the political history of the time, for he had been 

 Ambassador-Extraordinary at Vienna in 1813 and British 

 representative at the fruitless Congress at Chatillon, where 

 the attempt was made to come to peaceable terms with 

 Napoleon. His services were rewarded by the grant of a 

 peerage of the United Kingdom, and he thereafter sat in 

 the House of Lords as Viscount Gordon. Throughout the 

 strenuous parliamentary life of more than thirty years 

 which still lay before him, he never lost his interest in the 

 progress of science and literature. The presidency of the 

 Society of Antiquaries, to which he was elected in 1812, 

 he continued to hold till 1846. 



The Rev. Charles Parr Burney was the son of the Greek 

 scholar and grandson of the musician. He was elected 

 F.R.S. in 1814. 



At the Anniversary of the Royal Society on St. Andrew's 

 Day this year Sir Humphry Davy was elected President. 

 Accordingly he took the chair at the first meeting of the 

 Club thereafter. Since he came to London in 1801 his 

 rise into world-wide fame had been steady and rapid. 

 Installed in the laboratory of the Royal Institution he 

 advanced from one triumph to another. Demonstrating 

 the existence of a series of new metals in the alkalies and 

 earths, proving chlorine to be an element, investigating the 

 nature of fire-damp, inventing the safety-lamp for miners, and 

 lastly recognising the genius of Faraday and starting him on 

 his path. The originality and brilliance of his discoveries 

 were amply acknowledged at home and abroad. The Royal 

 Society promptly bore its testimony to the value of his 

 work by electing him a Fellow in 1803, bestowing on him 

 its Copley Medal in 1805, and now in 1820 by electing him 



