Lister Institute Minutes

A short account of the constitutional arrangements of the Institute follows:-

At first a Committee was brought together, subsequent to the Mansion House Meeting in 1889, to investigate the possibilities of establishing a Research Institute. When the Institute was incorporated in 1891 a Council of 17 members was set up to control its affairs.

The mechanism of government of the Institute was amended after the Iveagh benefaction in 1899. The Institute, incorporated as a company, was limited by guarantee but authorized to omit the word 'limited'. It was subject to company law, and since 1962 was also been registered as a charity under the Charities Act 1960. The subscribers who signed the original 'Memorandum of Association' formed a body called 'The Members of the Institute'. They received no dividend, but were equivalent to shareholders in any public company. A report with audited accounts was presented to them at an Annual General Meeting; and, most important, any proposal by the Governing Body which altered the aims or scope of the Institute as set out in the Memorandum had to be submitted to their vote.

The number of Members was maintained by invitations from the Governing Body to suitable persons interested in the Institute, including from time to time senior members of the scientific staff. The Members, as a bodyhad another important right, to elect a number of persons to the Council of the Institute; the maximum number at first was twelve.

There were also statutory representatives on the Council from various bodies, which included the Royal Society, the Grocers' Company, the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and of Physicians and the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, London and Dublin. The Council was advisory, but its most important function was to elect three persons, usually distinguished in medicine or science, to the Governing Body.

The Governing Body, still in existence, which elects its own Chairman and Treasurer, was responsible for the policy and finances of the Institute and for the appointment of the scientific staff. The Director of the Institute was responsible to the Governing Body for the general direction of the work and for the day-to-day administration. The heads of departments were responsible in their turn to the Director.

The government of the Institute was therefore not a self-perpetuating oligarchy, but a hierarchy in which the lowest tier, the Members of the Institute, had some control over the actions or policy of the Governing Body. Until 1949, when the constitution of the Governing Body was amended, the Director was not ex-officio a member of the Governing Body, but its servant.

(This description is based on the account on pages 52 to 53 of Chick, Hume and Macfarlane War on Disease.)