Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock helped to develop the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: Tristan Bejawn/Guardian/eyevine
For science enthusiasts in the United Kingdom, the Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution (RI) are as much a part of the season’s celebration as are Christmas trees and carol singing. These iconic talks for a young audience, celebrating their 200th anniversary this year, have introduced many people to the delights of science through captivating demonstrations. Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock is the next speaker to take to the floor, delivering this historic lecture series this week.
Held in the RI’s famous lecture theatre on Albemarle Street in London, the lectures began in 1825 as one of London’s most fashionable educational spectacles. In theory, the lectures were open to anyone “who wanted to improve their minds”, says Charlotte New, the RI’s head of heritage and collections. But, although the ticket price wasn’t prohibitively high, it was enough to ensure a well-heeled and genteel audience. As the writer George Eliot observed in 1851, the lectures were “as fashionable an amusement as the Opera”.
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The RI was founded in 1799 by scientist Benjamin Thompson and botanist Joseph Banks as an organization to introduce new technologies and teach science to the general public through lectures and demonstrations. It soon also became a research institution with its own laboratories, in which chemist Humphry Davy, who was appointed director of the chemical laboratory in 1801, made groundbreaking discoveries about new chemical elements. Davy also presented many of the public lectures, and his flamboyant style brought them wide renown.
When Davy’s former assistant Michael Faraday took over as laboratory director in 1825, he faced the formidable task of living up to his mentor’s legacy. Once a bookbinder’s apprentice, Faraday had already come to rival Davy as a researcher, notably through his work on electromagnetic induction, which led to the invention of the electric motor. Soon enough, he proved himself to be his predecessor’s equal behind the lecture podium, too.
“Very little information exists in the archives to describe why the lectures were developed,” says New. The first series was delivered in 1825 by John Millington, the RI’s professor of mechanics. Originally, the series were much more extensive than today’s, comprising a set of 22 lectures on natural philosophy that were, according to the institute’s management minutes, “suited to a juvenile auditory, during the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide recesses”. (Here, ‘juvenile’ probably referred to people aged 15 to 20 — older than the current target audience of schoolchildren, typically aged 11 to 17.)
Science in action
Initially, Faraday tried to avoid getting roped in as a speaker, but in 1827 he relented, delivering his first series on the topic of chemistry. Before long, he became the default Christmas lecturer, presenting 19 series over the next four decades and shaping the format that persists today. He mastered the art of live demonstration. “He never told his listeners of an experiment, he always showed it,” wrote Lovell Reeve, a dealer of natural-history objects, in 1863. The Illustrated London News declared in 1861: “There can be no greater treat to any one fond of scientific pursuits than to attend a course of these lectures.”
“If you look at his lecture notes, they are laid out almost like a theatre script,” says Katy Duncan, a postdoctoral research fellow at the RI. “Demonstrations like stage directions on the left leaf, and the script on the right.”
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