To Roscoe, therefore, fell the honour of introducing the Prince and Princess of Wales—our present King and Queen—to the meeting of three thousand industrial chemists assembled in the Albert Hall, when the Prince welcomed the gathering in a felicitous speech. The foreign delegates were afterwards received in private audience by King Edward VII, when Roscoe, as Honorary President, had the honour of presenting them. Roscoe’s first introduction to the British Association was at the Glasgow meeting in 1855, when the late Lord Playfair was President of the Chemical Section, and when he himself acted as the secretary. At this meeting he read a paper on the results of a joint investigation with Bunsen on the action of light upon chlorine water, an examination and extension of Wittwer’s work on the same subject. This was subsequently published in the _Journal of the Chemical Society_ and in _Liebig’s Annalen_. As already stated, he acted as one of the local secretaries at the Manchester meeting of 1861, when he presented a report jointly with the late Drs. Schunck and R. Angus Smith, “On the Condition of Manufacturing Chemistry in the South Lancashire District” (_Brit. Assoc. Rep._ 1861, pp. 108-128). At the Bath meeting in 1864 he gave one of the evening lectures on the chemical action of light. At the Liverpool meeting of 1870 he presided over the Chemistry Section. Then, as now, France and Germany were at war, and that fact naturally called for reference. But, _Eheu!_ neither the cosmopolitan character of Science to which he then alluded, nor upwards of forty years of that comity among those interested in Science and its applications which he confidently hoped would “render impossible the breaking out of disasters so fatal to the progress of Science and to the welfare of humanity!” as he then witnessed, have served to avert an even more fearful disaster. The small but living fire which he contended would in the end surely serve to melt down national animosities has been now almost wholly extinguished by the arrogant pride and lust of power which has obsessed a nation claiming to be the most enlightened in the world. In 1884 he again served as President of the Chemical Section at the meeting in Montreal. In 1887 he was President of the Association at the Manchester meeting in that year—an honour he prized all the more on account of his long association with that city. The meeting was notable as being the largest held since the foundation of the Association, and was specially characterized by the number of foreign chemists who were present. He continued to take an active interest in the affairs of the Association up to the time of his death, and was a constant attendant at the meetings of its Council. CHAPTER X PUBLIC SERVICES—POLITICAL AND PROFESSIONAL WORK