12 Anwversary Address by Sir Wiliam Huggins. [Nov. 30, 
It must be borne in mind that the bare statement in a few sentences of 
the public work accomplished by the Society fails altovether to bring before 
the imagination an adequate conception of the large amount of free labour 
ungrudgingly given by those Fellows who composed the several committees 
to which the work was entrusted. 
Going back to the first century of the Society’s existence, the work done 
for the National Observatory at Greenwich may be fairly taken as typical 
of the Society’s outside activity at that time. It is not too much to say 
that the Observatory owes, in no small degree, its early efficiency and the 
high position it soon reached, to the advice and the energetic action on its 
behalf of the Royal Society. The Observatory, at the time it was placed, 
in 1710, by Queen Anne in the sole charge of the Society, was without 
instruments, except such as Flamsteed had himself supplied. Immediately 
on taking charge, the Society appointed a Committee which visited Greenwich, 
and, as a result, sent in an application to the Ordnance Office, but at the 
time unsuccessfully, for the new instruments which were absolutely essential 
for properly carrying on the work of an observatory. The little interest 
taken by the Government of that day in Science is manifest from the answer 
received from the Ordnance Office, “ that they had never been at any charge 
for instruments, but only for repairing the house and paying Mr. Flamsteed’s 
salary.” The Society persevered, and when, in 1720, Halley succeeded 
Flamsteed, was successful in persuading the Government to provide a few 
of the more necessary instruments. At a little later date the Society 
induced the Government to expend £1,000 on instruments, to be constructed 
by Graham and Bird. When George III. came to the throne he re-appointed 
the Society as sole visitors, and ordered the Astronomer Royal to obey the 
regulations drawn up by the Council, and commanded the Master General 
of Ordnance to furnish such instruments as the Council should think 
necessary for the Observatory. In the list of these instruments is mentioned 
a ten-foot telescope of Dollond’s “ new invention.” Further, it was in answer 
to a petition from the Royal Society that the King gave orders for the 
printing of the Observations made at the Observatory. At a later date the 
Society called on the Government to advance funds to establish magnetical 
observatories at Greenwich, and in various parts of the British dominions, 
with the result that in a few years no fewer than forty magnetical 
establishments were in full activity. 
In connection with the Observatory may be mentioned the considerable 
share which the Society took in bringing about the important alteration of 
the Calendar, known as the Change of Style, which took place in 1752. The 
