The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors

A detailed history recounts the founding and early development of a London scientific institution, centering on its originator and the early professors who shaped its character. It traces the founder's aims and career, the involvement of managers and lecturers who broadened its scope, and the ascent of major scientific figures whose work and reputations transformed the place. The narrative relies on meeting minutes, correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and contemporary memoirs to present biographical sketches, institutional progress, financial records, and documentary appendices that illuminate the institution's formative years and the interplay between administration and research.