Royal Institution

The Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded on 7 March 1799 in London for the diffusion of scientific knowledge to the public through lectures and demonstrations, an aim distinct from the Royal Society's own focus on original research among fellows. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an American-born physicist and administrator, drove the founding proposal and secured Sir Humphry Davy as an early lecturer; the Institution has been based at 21 Albemarle Street in Mayfair since its first year and received its Royal Charter in 1800. It became famous for its public Christmas Lectures, begun by Michael Faraday in 1825 and continuing most years since, and for the laboratory work of Faraday himself across four decades there, now recorded on this atlas as its founding member.