ORGANIZATION
Royal Institution
The London scientific organization (founded 1799) where
Faraday spent his entire career—an
institutional ecology that democratized access to science through public lectures and valued achievement over pedigree in laboratory access.
The Royal Institution of Great Britain, founded in 1799 by
Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) and others, was a deliberately designed institution for 'diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life.' Unlike the Royal Society (which was a fellowship of established natural philosophers) or the universities (which restricted access by class and credentials), the RI made scientific knowledge accessible to a broad public through affordable lectures and maintained a research laboratory available to its staff regardless of social origin. Faraday was hired in 1813 as laboratory assistant to Humphry Davy, became Director of the Laboratory in 1825, and remained associated with the institution until his death in 1867—fifty-four years during which the RI provided apparatus, materials, institutional legitimacy, and the cultural space in which a
bookbinder's apprentice could become one of history's great scientists. The RI's Christmas Lectures, public demonstrations, and commitment