THE FIRST MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 99 



Association, laying down rules for its guidance, and assembling its 

 mechanism, and the speech in which he did so is a masterpiece in its 

 appreciation of the then position and the future of science, as well as in 

 the grasp it revealed of the organisation of the Association, which remains 

 to-day fundamentally as Harcourt conceived it. The objects of the 

 Association, as now stated in its first statute, are in Harcourt 's own words : 

 ' to give a stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific 

 enquiry ; to promote the intercourse of those who cultivate science in 

 different parts of the British Empire with one another and with foreign 

 philosophers.' Perhaps the use of the comparative degree in the opening 

 phrase would not have been adopted to-day ; perhaps the term ' philoso- 

 phers ' would not (the more is the pity) have been used as synonymous 

 with men of science ; but essentially Harcourt's statement of objects is 

 that which the Association has pursued, unvaried, for a century. 



John Phillips came to York as an orphan boy with his uncle William 

 Smith, a land agent and the founder of English stratigraphical geology. 

 In Phillips the love of science was born of a scientific environment. He 

 helped Smith to hang his maps and diagrams when lecturing in York, and 

 he thus came under the influence of Harcourt and other members of the 

 Yorkshire Philosophical Society. In 1826 he was appointed keeper of 

 the Society's museum, and he arranged collections and lectured in other 

 local museums such as Scarborough. In later years he was Professor of 

 Geology in King's College, London, and subsequently in the University 

 of Oxford, succeeding to the chair which had been Buckland's. His 

 services to the Association culminated in his Presidency in 1865. 



At the Jubilee meeting of the Association in York in 1881 Archdeacon 

 Hey gave a paper on the foundation in 1831, and his reference to the family 

 of Gray may be appropriately quoted here. ' Our notice of the York 

 Founders of the British Association would be incomplete without reference 

 to one who was associated with Professor Phillips as one of its secretaries 

 at the first York meeting, and held the office of treasurer to the Yorkshire 

 Philosophical Society up to the time of his death. William Gray was the 

 only son of Jonathan Gray, first treasurer of the British Association, an 

 Alderman of York, much respected for his personal character, and perhaps 

 slightly dreaded for the pungency of his wit. He was the grandson of 

 William Gray, a man whose name deserves to be held in remembrance as 

 the earnest and munificent promoter of every good work, the friend of 

 William Wilberforce, the firm ally of that little band which broke down the 

 cruel system prevailing in our lunatic asylums ; one of the first founders of 

 and workers in our Sunday schools. He outlived his son Jonathan, and 

 died in 1845 in his ninety-fifth year. William Gray the younger was a 

 man who through life was engaged in active professional duties. For 

 some years he was a member of the Corporation, and served the office of 

 Lord Mayor. Through life he was a lover of science and a cultivator of 

 literature.' 



To Phillips fell the honour of delivering the first lecture to the 

 Association ; during the opening evening he addressed the audience extem- 

 pore upon the geology of Yorkshire, and exhibited specimens. From this 

 until the closing day, the following Saturday, some twenty-six scientific 



