The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First ProfessorsJones, Bence
History
The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors
Jones, Bence
Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von, 1753-1814; Young, Thomas, 1773-1829
The buildings are advancing rapidly, and I hope the lecture room at
least will be ready by the 1st of January. The laboratory will, I
think, be found very convenient, being airy and well lighted.
During his stay at Harrogate Rumford made careful experiments on
himself with regard to the warm bath. These are given in his thirteenth
essay, on the ‘Salubrity of Warm Bathing.’ He found that a daily bath
at ninety-six degrees or ninety-seven for half-an-hour two hours before
dinner for five weeks increased the appetite, the digestion, the
spirits, the strength, and the insensibility to cold.
On leaving Harrogate he went to Scotland.
A visit of ceremony was paid him by the magistrates of Edinburgh; he
was consulted respecting the abolition of mendicity, and the measures
which he recommended were speedily executed with complete success.
He was made an honorary member of the Royal Society and of the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and he received a gold snuff-box as
a compliment for his assistance in reforming the culinary establishment
of Heriot’s Hospital, and was elected a member of the Society of
Scotland for Bettering the Condition of the Poor. His letters of thanks
for these last honours are preserved.
To the Lord Provost of Edinburgh he wrote:
I shall always remember with pleasure, and with the most sincere
gratitude, the kind and flattering attentions I received in
Edinburgh during my stay there. The public honours that were
conferred on me by the corporation of the city and by the
University were highly gratifying to me; but nothing affected me so
deeply as the deference which was paid to my opinions and advice on
subjects of public utility by men in the highest stations and of
the most respectable character and abilities, and the liberality,
zeal, and perseverance with which the measures I took the liberty
to recommend were adopted and pursued.
May the important undertaking in which the inhabitants of Edinburgh
are now engaged--the prevention of that most disgusting and
disgraceful of public evils, mendicity--and the formation of a
permanent establishment for the _instruction_ and _employment_ of
the poor be completely successful, and may it serve as a model for
imitation to every city and every town in Great Britain and Ireland.
To the Rev. George Baird, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, he
wrote from the Royal Institution, March 21, 1801, thanking him for the
honour which the Society in Scotland for Bettering the Condition and
Improving the Comfort of the Poor had conferred on him by electing him
a member.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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