d as a Member of this Craft." In
his reply, accepting the Freedom of the Company, Airy wrote thus: "I
shall much value the association with a body whose ostensible title
bears so close a relation to the official engagements which have long
occupied me. I have had extensive experience both in arranging and in
using optical and mathematical instruments, and feel that my own
pursuits are closely connected with the original employments of the
Company." The Freedom of the Company was duly presented, and the
occasion was celebrated by a banquet at the Albion Tavern on Tuesday,
July 6th.

The Freedom of the City of London was conferred at a Court of Common
Council held at the Guildhall on Thursday the 4th of November. In
presenting the gold box containing the Freedom, the Chamberlain, in an
eloquent speech, first referred to the fact that this was the first
occasion on which the Freedom had been conferred on a person whose
name was associated with the sciences other than those of war and
statecraft. He then referred to the solid character of his work, in
that, while others had turned their attention to the more attractive
fields of exploration, the discovery of new worlds or of novel
celestial phenomena, he had incessantly devoted himself to the less
interesting, less obtrusive, but more valuable walks of practical
astronomy. And he instanced as the special grounds of the honour
conferred, the compilation of nautical tables of extraordinary
accuracy, the improvement of chronometers, the correction of the
compasses of iron ships, the restoration of the standards of length
and weight, and the Transit of Venus Expeditions. In his reply Airy
stated that he regarded the honour just conferred upon him as the
greatest and proudest ever received by him. He referred to the fact
that the same honour had been previously conferred on the valued
friend of his youth, Thomas Clarkson, and said that the circumstance
of his succeeding such a man was to himself a great honour and
pleasure. He alluded to his having received a small exhibition from
one of the London Companies, when he was a poor undergraduate at
Cambridge, and acknowledged the great assistance that it had been to
him. With regard to his occupation, he said that he had followed it in
a great measure because of its practical use, and thought it fortunate
that from the first he was connected with an institution in which
utility was combined with science. The occasion of this prese