Website of the Week

The Royal Institute of Great Britain 

and its Christmas Lectures

2013 Christmas Lectures, Credit: Paul Wilkinson

The Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded in 1799. The founders’ goal was to introduce new technologies and to teach science to the general public. Education for the young in the sciences was fairly rare at that time. There had been science lectures at the Royal Institute for adults from 1800, but not for children.

Michael Faraday was one of the famous scientists who worked in the Royal Institute, and in 1826 he started the tradition to give lectures during the Christmas season. The lectures became popular during the years, only stopping during WWII. Topics were various from zoology to chemistry, and in the last decades it included space science, computers, history, music or geology, by famous scientists, such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins or David Attenborough: http://rigb.org/docs/christmas_lecturers_18252013_0.pdf .

You can watch previous televised lectures on the Royal Institute’s website. In the 20th century, the lectures also published as books to provide even wider audience for science.

Review by Erika Prange, SWC Librarian