‘The Common Purposes of Life’

Book excerpt: For more than two hundred years the Royal Institution has been at the centre of scientific research and has provided a cultural location for science in Britain. Within its walls some of the major scientific figures of the last two centuries - such as Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, John Tyndall, James Dewar, Lord Rayleigh, William Henry Bragg, Henry Dale, Eric Rideal, William Lawrence Bragg and George Porter - carried out much of their research, with discoveries from sodium to x-ray crystallography. The success of the Royal Institution in research and in locating science within general culture led it to being used as a model for other institutions, most notably by the founders of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Much has been written about the scientific work in the Royal Institution, but much less about the cultural settings which allowed it to become such a major site for the creation of scientific knowledge. The purpose of this book is to examine these aspects of its history.