ABSTRACT
When William Thomas Brande (1788-1866) resigned his position as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1852 after a tenure of nearly four decades, he was apparently well pleased with his achievements in the job. For example, he claimed with justification that his were the first lectures to give ‘so extended a view of chemistry, and of its applications’. It was a considerable feat in view of that science’s explosive development in the first half of the nineteenth century. In his speech of resignation, he expressed his pride in the fact that he was leaving the Royal Institution ‘more prosperous than at any former period; its scientific fame more prevalent; its foundations more secure; its halls more frequented; its usefulness more acknowledged’.1 The Managers of the Royal Institution gave him credit for this happy state of affairs, putting on record their apparently warmly held conviction that the reputation which the Institution had maintained as a school of chemistry was due to Brande’s personal reputation, his scientific achievements, and his assiduous dedication to good teaching.2
