Royal Institution for its founding were given by the Society for Bettering the Conditions and Improving the Comforts of the Poor, under the guidance of philanthropist Sir Thomas Bernard and American-born British scientist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. Since its founding it has been based at 21 Albemarle Street in Mayfair. Its Royal Charter was granted in 1800. Throughout its history, the Institution has supported public engagement with science through a programme of lectures, many of which continue today. The most famous of these are the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, founded by Michael Faraday. The Royal Institution was founded as the
Pneumatic Institution medical treatment would be carried out side by side. In March 1798, the curiosity of Humphry Davy was aroused by dramatic statements made in Samuel Latham Mitchell's "Remarks on the gaseous oxyd of nitrogen and its effects (1795)" that nitrous oxide had disastrous effects whether inhaled or in contact with the skin, that it was indeed the very "principle of contagion". Davy joined the "Pneumatic Institution" in 1798 as the laboratory operator, largely through the recommendation of Davies Giddy, and it was here that he undertook experiments that included himself inhaling nitrous oxide, which he called "laughing gas" for its