1852 W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) ; W. Spottiswoode 363 



into the Royal Society in 1841 and was Secretary of the 

 Linnean Society from 1840 to 1860. 



It ma} 7 be remarked that at the Annual General Meetings 

 the leniency shown to members who had not attended for 

 more than twelve months had been increasing for some 

 time. Year after year the Treasurer reports cases of mem- 

 bers who have not appeared at any meeting for three, four 

 or even five years and yet the Club cannot bring itself to 

 " discontinue " them. Now and then when a member 

 to whom the rule about non-attendance had been applied 

 came back as a guest, he must have been surprised to find 

 that a number of his fellow delinquents were still keeping 

 their places in the Club. 



Among the guests who dined with the Club during this 

 year there were two of note as men of science. William 

 Thomson, the future Lord Kelvin, came to the meeting on 

 May 6th, invited by Lord Rosse. He had already given 

 proofs of his genius by the extraordinary brilliance of his 

 career at Cambridge. At the age of only two-and- twenty 

 he had been chosen in 1846 Professor of Natural Philosophy 

 in the University of Glasgow. But the great triumphs of 

 his life were still to come. William Spottiswoode, who dined 

 twice in the course of the year on the invitation of John 

 Dickinson, had taken mathematical honours at Oxford and 

 interested himself in physical researches, especially in the 

 polarisation of light. In later years he joined the Club 

 and in 1878 became its President, when he was elected 

 President of the Royal Society. It is noteworthy that two 

 of the future Presidents of the Society and of the Club, 

 while still young men, were both visitors to the Club in 

 the same year. Francis Sibson, also a visitor, was a well- 

 known physician who led an active life in the medical 

 and scientific society of London. He became a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society in 1849. 



1853. The Anniversary was celebrated in 1853 on June 

 23, when nineteen members attended and the Earl of Rosse 

 presided. According to the statement by the Treasurer 

 the expenses for the past year had been 95 45. 6d., leaving 



