ABSTRACT
A standard part of the Royal Institution's programme of lectures had been the morning chemistry lectures to medical students, of which Thomas Brande and Michael Faraday had jointly carried the burden since the mid 1820s. Whatever warnings Humphry Davy gave the young Faraday, they were ignored and Faraday was appointed laboratory assistant on 1 March 1813 at a rate of 21s per week. One of the consequences of bringing together the various administrative aspects of the Royal Institution under a single institutional arrangement was that the library came, for the first time, under the direct control of the Managers. On Friday 25 May 1864, the Secretary of the Royal Institution, Henry Bence Jones, offered the seventy two year old Michael Faraday the Presidency of the Royal Institution to replace the 4th Duke of Northumberland who was in failing health. Faraday more or less single handedly managed the Discourses until 1840.
