115 BENEFACTORS OF THE SOCIETY. At a Meeting of Council holden December 14, 1663, it was "Ordered, that the Secretary bring in a list of the Names of all the Benefactors to the Society, together with their Donations, and the time when they presented them. "Ordered, that the Benefactors be registered in loose vellum sheets." Similar orders were made on December 3, 1674, on April 27, 1682, and on several subsequent dates. Unfortunately these early lists of Benefactors are not now extant, and no list drawn up at the present day can pretend to be complete. The subjoined list is compiled principally by aid of the Index to the MS. Council Minutes, and is complete only in respect of benefactions of £50 and upwards there recorded. The dates given are, in most cases, those of the Council Meetings in the minutes of which the gifts are recorded. Many more names would be added if the lists of subscribers to special funds were consulted, but in these cases only the names of the founders of such funds are here given. KING CHARLES II. 1662. August 13. Granted to the Society a Charter of Incorporation. 1663. August 3. Presented the Society with a mace of silver, richly gilt, weighing 190 oz. avoirdupois. 1667. September 27. Granted the Society Chelsea College and lands. The College was conveyed to the Society by Royal Patent dated April 8, 1669. 1768. March 24. KING GEORGE III. Ordered the sum of £4000 clear of fees to be paid to the Society, to enable them to send expeditions to observe the Transit of Venus. The surplus left, after paying all the expenses connected with the expeditions, was ordered by the King to be carried to the credit of the Society. KING GEORGE IV. 1825. December 15. Founded two Gold Medals of the value of Fifty guineas each (see Royal Medals, p. 132). KING WILLIAM IV. 1833. March 28. The grant of two Royal Medals restored. QUEEN VICTORIA. 1838. July 5. The grant of two Royal Medals continued. 1663. December 14. W. Balle. Gift of £100 and "an iron Chest having three Locks and Keyes." This chest is still in use. 1664. June 22. Sir John Cutler. Settled an annual stipend of £50 a year upon Robert Hooke, for a Lectureship, empowering the President, Council, and Fellows of the Society to appoint the subjects and number of lectures. 1665-6. February 21. Daniel Colwall. Gift of £100.—" Voted, that the Fifty pounds in cash; that were formerly presented by Mr. Colwall, be delivered out, to be added to another Fifty pounds presented by the same, to pay for the Collection of Rarities, formerly belonging to Mr. Hubbard." 1666-7. January 2. Henry Howard (afterwards sixth Duke of Norfolk). Gift to the Society of "the Library of Arundel House, to dispose thereof as their property" (see p. 168). The Society" ordered that Mr. Howard should be registered as a benefactor." 1673. November 27. Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester. Bequest of £400, invested January 21, 1674-5, in a Fee Farm Rent at Lewes. 1685. November 11. Samuel Pepys. A gift of £50, “to be laid out as the Council shall judge most convenient." The money was used to pay for 50 Plates to Willughby's 'Historia Piscium.' 1708-1718. Sir Isaac Newton. £190.-At the Meeting of the Council on January 21, 1707, the President, Sir Isaac Newton, "proposed to the Councill of the Society that if they would please to accept of free Gifts, of about or 20 pounds, from 10 any of their members, English or Foreigners, to be paid after the death of the Donors, for promoting Natural Philosophy, he had a prospect of obtaining some such Gifts; and the Councill agreed to accept of them with thanks." At the meeting on January 12, 1708-9, the President gave the Society twenty pounds instead of the like sume he intended after his death; which was order'd to be put up by itself, and to be subject to such End or Benefaction as the President shall direct. On December 14, 1710, "the President acquainted the Councill that he would give towards the easing of the Debt of ye Society for ye House [in Crane Court], besides the twenty pounds he had reserved, One Hundred Pounds." On November 6, 1718, "the Treasurer acquainted the Council that Sir Isaac Newton had lately paid him as a Gift to the Society seventy pounds." 1709. February 23. Dame Mary Sadleir, Relict of Dr. William Croone. Founded the Croonian Lecture (see p. 126) by bequest of One Fifth of the Clear Rent of a house at the corner of Lambeth Hill, for that purpose. 1710. December 14. Dr. Hans Sloane, Secretary R.S. £100. 1710. December 14. Alexander Pitfield, Treasurer R.S. £100. 1711. May 30. R. Balle. 1711. June 26. T. Isted. £50. 1711. June 26. Sir David Hamilton. £50. 1712. April 8. Richard Waller. £100. Waller built the "Repository" for the Society at a cost of £400 and accepted £300 as payment in full, on condition that he should be registered as a benefactor. 1716. July 5. Francis Aston. Bequest of an estate at Mabelthorpe, in Lincolnshire, consisting of 55 acres, 2 roods, and 2 perches, and "half the overplus of his estate above Debts and Legacies," realising £445 Os. 7d. 1717. June 20. Sir Godfrey Copley, Bart. £100 in trust for the Royal Society, "to be laid out in experiments, or otherwise, for the benefit thereof, as they shall direct and appoint." The will was dated October 14, 1704, and proved in the Prerogative Court, April 11, 1709; first applied to the purchase of a medal in 1736 (see p. 124). 1717. October 24. Thomas Paget, D.D. Bequest of two houses in Coleman Street, worth about £100 per annum. 1719. October 26. Robert Keck. Bequest of £500 to the Society "to support their forreign correspondence." 1741. December 16. Martin Folkes. £100, as a present to the Society "to assist them in the present low state of their Revenue." 1754. November 14. Samuel Hickman. 1754. November 21. Martin Folkes. and a portrait of Lord Bacon. 1769. February 2. Robert Smith, D.D. Bequest of £100. Bequest of £200 in money Bequest of £100. 1775. Henry Baker. Bequest of £100, the interest to be applied for an oration or discourse in Natural History or Experimental Philosophy (see Bakerian Lecture, p. 124). 1786. July 27. Earl Stanhope. Bequest of £500. 1796. May 5. William Benson Earle. Bequest of £210 "for the purchase of Books for the Society's Library." 1796. November 24. Count Rumford. Gift of £1000 stock to found the Rumford Medals (see p. 123). 1828. December 11. William Hyde Wollaston, M.D. Gift of £2000 3 per cent. Consols, to be called the Donation Fund, the dividends to be applied in promoting experimental researches (see p. 121). 1828. December 11. Davies Gilbert. Gift of £1000 to the Donation Fund. 1829. January 22. J. Guillemand. Gift of £100 to the Donation Fund. 1839. March 7. Sir Clifton Wintringham. Bequest of £1,200 3 per cent. Consolidated Bank Annuities, for the annual award of a Silver Cup to the Author of the most satisfactory Experimental Examination of one of certain subjects (see p. 125.) 1843. November 30. Edwin Hill Handley. Bequest of £6,378 198. Founder of the Handley Fund (see p. 128). "such a 1843. November 30. Thomas Botfield. Bequeathed sum of money, by way of donation, as would have been payable if he had been made a Life Member" of the Royal Society. (£60.) 1854. June 29. B. Oliveira. Gift of £50 for the Promotion of Science. Bequest of £70. 1864. October 27. Beriah Botfield. 1865. December 21. B. Oliveira. Bequest of £4,000, reduced after a chancery suit to £1,506 17s. 1d. (Minutes, October 28, 1869). This was applied to the construction of the Telescope afterwards lent to Dr. Huggins. 1869. April 22. Dr. John Davy, bequeathed the Service of Plate presented to Sir Humphry Davy for the invention of the Safety Lamp, in fulfilment of Sir H. Davy's intentions, to be melted down and sold, in order from the proceeds to found a medal (see p. 128). It produced £736 8s. 5d. 1871. June 15. John Peter Gassiot. Securities representing £10,000 "given to the Royal Society upon Trust, for the purpose of assisting in carrying on and continuing magnetical and meteorological observations in the Kew Observa tory" (see p. 128). 1873. October 30. E. H. Sterling. funds of the Society." "Donation of £100 to the 1874. June 18. Sir Francis Ronalds. the Augmentation of the Wollaston Bequest of £500 "for [Donation] Fund" (see 1874. October 29. Henry Dircks. Bequest of one-fourth of his residue, amounting (see Minutes, May 18, 1876) to £878 12s. 10d. 1875. November 30. Sir Charles Wheatstone. Bequest of £500 for the Donation Fund, and several portraits. 1876. February 17. T. J. Phillips Jodrell. Gift of £6,000 to be applied in any manner "most conducive to the encouragement, among our countrymen, of original research in the Physical Sciences" (see p. 129). 1877. (President's Address, 'Roy. Soc. Proc.,' vol. 26, p. 429). A sum of £500 contributed anonymously by five Fellows to the Society's funds. 1879. January 16. Sir Joseph Whitworth. Gift of £2000 to the Fee Reduction Fund. Sir William (now Lord) Armstrong. Gift of £1000 to the Fee Reduction Fund. 1878. April 11. James Young. A donation of £1,000, “for the general purposes of the Society." This donation was devoted to the "Publication Fund" (June 27, 1878), afterwards merged in the Fee Reduction Fund (November 7, 1878). 1879. February 27. Sydney Ellis. "An unconditional bequest to the Society of £1,000." 1879. April 24. Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart. Bequest of £1,500, to the Society, "the interest to be applied to the promotion of scientific research." 1880. December 16. Miss H. E. Pipe. Gift of £105 in aid of the publication of Mr. W. K. Parker's papers. 1881. March 24. Sir Joseph Copley, Bart. Gift of £1666 13s. 4d. 3 per cent. Consols, "to provide in perpetuity a yearly bonus of £50 to be given to the recipient of the Copley Medal." 1884. January 17. Sir William Siemens. Bequest of £1,000 free of legacy duty, to the Scientific Relief Fund. 1884. October 30. G. Bentham. Bequest of £1000 to the Scientific Relief Fund; afterwards reduced to £567 by an informality in the will. 1885. April 23. James Budgett. Gift of £100 in aid of the publication of Professor W. K. Parker's Researches. 1886. February 18. Dr. Ludwig Mond. Donation of 500 guineas to the Scientific Relief Fund. 1886. November 30. Sir William G. (now Lord) Armstrong. Donation of £7,800 to the Scientific Relief Fund (see p. 120). 1888. March 15. Dr. J. F. Main. A telescope and the piers built for it at St. Moritz. 1891. February 19. Henry Bowman Brady. Bequest of all his books and papers relating to the Protozoa, and £300 free of duty, upon trust for the purchase of works on the same or kindred subjects. 1891. October 29. His Excellency Dr. Robert Halliday Gunning gave the Society his bond for £1000 to found the Gunning Fund (see p. 131). 1893. May 18. Earl of Derby. Bequest of £2,000. |