Surrey Institution
The Surrey Institution was an organisation devoted to scientific, literary and musical education and research, based in London. It was founded by private subscription in 1807, taking the Royal Institution, founded in 1799, as a model.[1] The Institution lasted only until 1823.[2] when it was dissolved. (A separate and distinct charity, The Surrey Institution was formed in 1812 with aims to discharge persons confined to gaol in the county for debt.[3] )
Contents |
[edit] History
Early meetings were held at the London coffee house on Ludgate Hill.[4]
The institution determined upon its name after a property convenient for its needs was found on Blackfriars Road on the south side of the Thames, at the time part of the county of Surrey. The architect employed was Joseph T. Parkinson, son of James Parkinson who owned the Rotunda Building, of his own design and constructed by James Burton, opened in 1787.[5]
The building had been the final home of the Leverian Museum, housing the collection of Sir Ashton Lever, but had fallen into disrepair.[6] The institution renovated it to include a large lecture hall capable of accommodating 500 people, and a galleried library of 60' length; it opened on the 1st May 1808. Other facilities in the building included committee rooms; a library with lending facilities; a reading room, chemical laboratory and contemporary philosophical apparatus.[1]
Costs were met by an initial 458 subscribers contributing thirty guineas each.[4] The library had more than 5000 volumes by 1810.[4]
[edit] Staff
Adam Clarke was appointed Librarian in 1808, through the intervention of Joseph Butterworth, his connection by marriage (their wives were sisters). The appointment was not a great success, though Clarke resided at the Institution and wrote there. After ten months he resigned and refused the salary. He was given the title of Honorary Librarian.[8][9] Thomas Hartwell Horne, on his own account, became sub-librarian in 1809, with the support of Clarke and Butterworth;[10] elsewhere he is mentioned as Librarian in 1814.[11] Horne's brother-in-law John Millard was assistant librarian in 1813.[12]
The Secretary in 1818 was Knight Spencer.[13]
[edit] Surrey Institution lectures
The Institution offered members and visitors lectures on a variety of subjects, the earliest of which included chemistry, mineralogy and natural philosophy, given by employed and visiting scientists, scholars and artists.[1] Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for instance, lectured on belles lettres in 1812-13;[14]; William Hazlitt, on the English Poets in 1817[15]; Goldsworthy Gurney found employment there in 1822, and there devised an improved blowpipe for which he won some renown.[16] Other lecturers included:
- Friedrich Christian Accum, from 1809;[17]
- Samuel Wesley, in 1809 and 1811.[18]
- Gregor von Feinaigle, in 1811;[19]
- John Mason Good in 1811–2;[20]
- Olinthus Gilbert Gregory in 1812;[21]
- John Murray in 1816.[22]
- William Crotch in 1818.[23]
- James Elmes, winter 1819–20.[24]
[edit] Later use of the Blackfriars Rotunda
The building from 1823 was used in a variety of ways until 1855, when it was put to ordinary business use.[6] In the 1820s it was a wine and concert room.[25] In 1831 it was described as the Surrey Rotunda, on Albion Place (the area south of Blackfriars Bridge, with industrial buildings) leading to Albion Street.[26]
In May or June 1830 Richard Carlile took over the Rotunda, and it became a centre for radical lectures and meetings. Carlile borrowed £1275 to renovate and lease the place, backed by William Devonshire Saull and Julian Hibbert.[27] Lectures then continued in the room where Coleridge and Hazlitt had spoken, with a capacity of about 500.[28] Carlile lectured and Robert Taylor preached there, with invited speakers.[29] John Gale Jones spoke there in 1830–1,[30] Zion Ward in 1831.[31] Elizabeth Sharples Carlile started her speaking career there in 1832.[32] There were also waxworks and wild beasts.[25]
James Elishama Smith gave his Lecture on a Christian Community at the Rotunda, as the headquarters of the National Union of the Working Classes,[33] in 1833; Carlile had given up the lease in 1832.[34] From 1833 it had a period called the Globe Theatre.[25] It was also an organising venue for Henry Hetherington and James Watson in running the NUWC.[35]
In 1838 the Rotunda was again a concert room.[25] George Jacob Holyoake was teaching and lecturing there in 1843.[36]
[edit] See also
The Surrey Institution was one of four such organisations in London in the early Nineteenth century;[37] its model was the Royal Institution; the other two were:
[edit] References
- Christina Parolin (2010), Radical Spaces: Venues of popular politics in London, 1790–c. 1845; Google Books.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c The Microcosm of London Rudolph Ackermann, 1811, reprinted by Methuen, 1904, pages 154-160
- ^ A History of the Surrey Institution, F. Kurzer, in Annals of Science, Volume 57, Number 2, 1 April 2000 , pp. 109-141(33)
- ^ The annual subscription charities and public societies in London. John Murrey. 1823. pp. 107. http://www.archive.org/details/annualsubscript00unkngoog.
- ^ a b c The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark and Parts Adjacent volume 4, Thomas Allen, Jaques and Wright, 1827 - 1829, pages 542-3
- ^ Torrens, H. S., "Parkinson, James (bap. 1730, d. 1813), land agent and museum proprietor", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/21370
- ^ a b Old and New London volume 6, Edward Walford, Cassell & Company, page 382
- ^ Thomas Allen, History of the Counties of Surrey and Sussex (1829), p. 317; Google Books.
- ^ Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 78, Part 2 (1808), p. 62; Google Books.
- ^ John Wesley Etheridge, The Life of the Rev. Adam Clarke, LL.D. (1858), pp. 221–2; Google Books.
- ^ Thomas Hartwell Horne and Sarah Anne Horne Cheyne, Reminiscences, Personal and Bibliographical, of Thomas Hartwell Horne (1862), p. 26; Google Books.
- ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Thomas Hartwell Horne.
- ^
"Feinaigle, Gregor von". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. - ^ The Royal kalendar, and court and city register for England, Scotland, Ireland, and the colonies (1818), p. 300; Google Books.
- ^ Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, &c., , Henry Crabb Robinson, University Press 1922, page 134
- ^ Lectures On the English Poets, Delivered at the Surrey Institution William Hazlitt, Taylor and Hessey, 1819, title page
- ^ Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, ed. (1890). "Gurney, Goldsworthy". Dictionary of National Biography. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 358.
- ^ Gee, Brian, "Accum, Friedrich Christian", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/56
- ^ Olleson, Philip, "Wesley, Samuel", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29072
- ^ Richardson, Terence, "Feinaigle, Gregor von", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9252
- ^ Wallis, Patrick, "Good, John Mason", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10942
- ^ Marsden, Ben, "Gregory, Olinthus Gilbert", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11469
- ^ Shorter, John, "Murray, John (1785/6–1851), writer on science and public lecturer", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/19635
- ^ Lecture series published. Howard Lee Irving, Ancients and Moderns: William Crotch and the development of classical music (1999); Google Books.
- ^ James Elmes, Lectures on Architecture, comprising the history of the art from the earliest times to the present day: delivered at the Surrey and Russell Institutions, London, and the Philosophical Institution at Birmingham (1821), p. ix; Google Books.
- ^ a b c d British History Online, Old and New London: Volume 6 by Edward Walford (1878) pp. 368-383.
- ^ James Elmes, A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs (1831), p. 7; archive.org.
- ^ Parolin, p. 200; Google Books.
- ^ Richard W. Davis, Richard J. Helmstadter (editors), Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: essays in honor of R. K. Webb (1992), pp. 51–2; Google Books.
- ^ Martin, Philip W., "Carlile, Richard", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4685
- ^ Parolin, p. 3; Google Books.
- ^ Stunt, Timothy C. F., "Ward, John", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28693
- ^ Royle, Edward, "Carlile, Elizabeth Sharples", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/38370
- ^ Stunt, Timothy C. F., "Smith, James Elishama", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25826
- ^ Davis and Helmstadter, p. 60; Google Books.
- ^ Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld: prophets, revolutionaries, and pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (1986), p. 231; Google Books.
- ^ Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels: the origins of the British secularist movement, 1791-1866 (1974), p. 90; Google Books.
- ^ "Surrey Institution". The New monthly magazine vol. IX. 1823. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SU0aAQAAIAAJ. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
