3-012-018 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The British Association at Bath: Sir Charles Lyell delivering the presidential address in the theatre, 1864. 'The New Theatre Royal...was erected...upon the site of the former theatre, built by Mr. Dance, R. A., in 1805, and destroyed by fire...The present edifice was designed by Charles J. Phipps, F.S.A., architect; the auditory will seat commodiously 1750 persons; it has three tiers of boxes and galleries above the pit...The stage arrangements are elaborate and elegant, the house was crowded on the great evening meeting of the inauguration, many ladies being present. The more distinguished members of the association were seated on the stage, which was elegantly fitted up and lighted with gaseliers...[the President] Sir Charles Lyell read his Address with excellent emphasis, and evidenced what Sir William Armstrong described as Sir Charles's talent of "imparting the charm of lucid and elegant language to the communication of ideas." The address was not so much a synoptical view of the progress of all branches of science as an independent contribution to one of them - namely, a monograph on the Bath Waters: their history, the geological theories of their origin, and the geological phenomena to which such agencies are believed to contribute'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.