Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/149

 1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 125 modelled, the method of voting for the award of the Gold Medal was modified and the present system established. Up to that date the practice had been to receive nominations or proposals at the November meeting, to take no action in December and to select the recipient, from among those proposed, in January. The Council meeting of January therefore had all the nominations before it, and was directed by the Bye-law to " decide to which of the persons so proposed the Medal shall be given at the ensuing Annual General Meeting." No explicit power was placed in the hands of the Council to vote that a Medal should not be awarded in any given year, but as the award required a three-fourth majority it would obviously occasionally occur that the candidate obtaining the suffrage of the majority could not satisfy three-fourths of the Council, and no election would be made. Up to 1850 no Medal had been awarded on six occasions. This procedure was found to have certain admitted difficulties, and it was decided to change it by adoption of the principle of dividing the election into two steps ; a selection from among the candidates in December and the election of the selected candidate in January by a three-fourths majority. It should be particularly noted that the question on which they are asked to vote in December is different from that on which the January vote is taken. In December the vote taken is as to the relative merits of the candidates ; in January, as to absolute merit, i.e. whether the astronomical work of the selected candidate is up to the standard set for the Medal. The January voting is not, as has sometimes been assumed, a confirmation of the previous selection, but in the words of the Bye-law is a vote " whether the nominee then before the Council shall or shall not receive the Gold Medal," i.e. is his work of such merit as to deserve unquestionably this high honour ? There is therefore no inconsistency in a member of Council who votes for a particular candidate in December and against him in January ; he is merely expressing his view that while the nominee is the best of those proposed, he is not quite of sufficient distinction for the award. This principle was clearly laid down by the Committee of 1856, and the Bye-laws were then redrafted in the form which, with one minor amendment, now stands. In 1857, Bishop was elected as President, and S. C. Whitbread took his place as Treasurer. Whit- bread was known rather as a meteorologist than an astronomer, having been one of three original founders of the Meteorological Society, with Lee and James Glaisher, in 1850. He was a most efficient Treasurer, and held the office for twenty-one years. He was an absolute terror to defaulters in arrear with their contribu- tions, and used to visit them personally and ask them to explain their conduct before he recommended the Council to expel them.