20 Annversary Address by Sir William Huggins. [Nov. 30, 
President, as an ex-officio elector, in the election of eight scientific Professor- 
ships at the Oxford University, and one Professorship at Cambridge. The 
President is also ex-officio a trustee of the British Museum, and of the 
Hunterian Museum, and a Governor of the City and Guilds of London 
Institute. The Society has a voice, through a representative Fellow chosen 
by the Council, on the Governing bodies of the Imperial Institute, the Lister 
institute of Preventive Medicine, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Eton, Rugby, 
Harrow, Winchester, and four other Public schools, and the Advisory Board 
for Military Education. The Council of the Society are electors of four 
members of Lawes’ Agricultural Trust, and are nominators of the members of 
the Meteorological Council. The Society is represented by the President and 
six of the Visitors on the Board of the Greenwich Observatory. One of the 
four sets of copies of the Standard Weights and Measures is held in custody 
by the Society. There is also a Committee for systematic work in Seismology. 
To the Royal Society is entrusted the responsible task of administrating 
the annual Government Grant of £4000 for the purpose of scientific research, 
and a grant of £1000 in aid of the publication of scientific papers. 
In addition to these permanent responsibilities, which are always with the 
Society, its advice and aid are sought from time to time both by the 
Governinent and by Scientific Institutions at home and abroad, in favour of 
independent objects of a more or less temporary character, of which, as 
examples, may be taken the recent action of the Society for the purpose of 
obtaining Government aid for the continuation through Egypt of the African 
Are of Meridian, and for the intervention of the Government to assist in 
securing the fulfilment of the part undertaken by Great Britain in the 
International Astrographic Catalogue and Chart. 
Upon the present Fellows falls the glorious inheritance of unbounded free 
labour ungrudgingly given during two centuries and a-half for the public 
service, as well as of the strenuous prosecution at the same time of the 
primary object of the Society, as set forth in the words of the Charters: 
“The promotion of Natural Knowledge.” The successive generations of 
Fellows have unsparingly contributed of their time to the introduction and 
promotion, whenever the opportunity was afforded them, of scientific 
knowledge and methods into the management of public concerns by Depart- 
ments of the Government. The financial independence of the Royal Society, 
neither receiving, nor wishing to accept State aid for its own private purposes, 
has enabled the Society to give advice and assistance which, both with the 
Government and with Parliament, have the weight and finality of a wholly 
disinterested opinion. I may quote here the words of a recent letter from 
