ABSTRACT
We have seen that, like many of his contemporaries, Dewar held more than one academic post at a time. He was similarly following current practice when he undertook a variety of consulting and advisory posts, and offered his services as an expert witness across a wide range of scientific and technical fields. Faraday and Tyndall had both acted in this way at the RI and there had grown up a practice in dividing the fees between the consultant and the Institution. Dewar's outside work had started when he undertook analyses of water and manures for the Highland and Agricultural Society during his time in Edinburgh. The work on water was to be resumed later in London, and it was from his time there that most of his commercial work arose. In the discussion at the RI over the renewal of his Fullerian Professorship in 1880, at the end of his first three-year tenure, he wrote to de la Rue to say that ‘I never intended making any income out of my R.I. chair. The present salary … is sufficient for my work, and if I desire, there are many opportunities of adding to it’. 1 This he soon did.
