Catalogue description Records of the National Physical Laboratory

In July 1898 a committee of inquiry under Lord Rayleigh, appointed by the Treasury the previous year, recommended the establishment of a National Physical Laboratory under the control of the Royal Society. It was to be an institution 'for standardising and verifying instruments, for testing materials and for the determination of physical constants'. It was first established at Kew Observatory in 1900 and was formally opened in new accommodation at Teddington in 1902. The Royal Society controlled the laboratory through a general board and an executive committee of 16 members, grant aid being provided by the Treasury.

In 1910 administration of the Kew and Eskdalemuir Observatories was transferred from the laboratory to the Meteorological Office.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research took over responsibility for its maintenance and development on 1 April 1918, though the Royal Society remained responsible for its scientific programme of work and for the appointment, promotion and dismissal of its scientific staff, subject to the approval of the Committee of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The executive committee through which the laboratory had been managed was recognised as a committee of the department, though its members continued to be appointed by the Royal Society.

Scientific management remained in its hands, and the committee presented an annual report to the general board on the work of the laboratory and a statement of work proposed for the next financial year, and submitted to the committee of the Council for approval a report on the year's work and a scheme of work for the ensuing year. The president of the Royal Society was chairman of the general board and of the executive committee. Six members of the committee were selected from representatives of industry.

The scope of the laboratory's work extended steadily into wider aspects of physical, engineering and even chemical research. In 1919 the laboratory took over from the Board of Trade the custody and maintenance of electrical standards. To the two original divisions, physics and engineering, five more had been added by the time that the department took over financial responsibility: metallurgy, ship, aerodynamics, electricity and metrology. This expansion continued subsequently, though the basic responsibilities remained unchanged.

Some aspects of the laboratory's work grew to be so large and important that the divisions in question were hived off to become separate research establishments, such as the Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory and the Radio Research Station. The developing work of the departments was reflected in the organisation of the executive committee, which set up various sub-committees, such as that on metallurgy in 1936, to superintend or assist in certain specified investigation, or to superintend some department of the laboratory.

Some fields of research at the laboratory which previously had been the responsibility of other committees of the department were taken over by the executive committee when those bodies were disbanded. Such duties were acquired from the former Metallurgy Research Board, Lubrication Research Committee and X-Ray Research Committee in 1939; from the Illumination Committee in 1940, this responsibility for work on natural lighting of buildings being shared with the Building Research Board; and from the Gas Cylinders Research Committee in 1945.

In 1965 the laboratory was transferred to the control of the Ministry of Technology, at the same time absorbing the National Chemical Laboratory. The executive committee was replaced by a steering committee of 11 members, and the general board by a visiting board. In 1970 the laboratory passed to the Department of Trade and Industry, in 1974 to the Department of Industry, and subsequently to the second Department of Trade and Industry.

With regard to the structure of the laboratory, in 1975 the Inorganic and Metallic Structures Division was merged with the Chemical Standards Division, and the Maritime Science and Ship Divisions were transferred to the National Maritime Institute Ltd which in July 1976 took over responsibility for research into the performance, handling and safety of ships and offshore structures, which formerly had been undertaken by the National Physical Laboratory. The Chemical Standards Division was disbanded in 1980. A new Planning, Marketing and Administration Division was created in 1982.

The laboratory's functions now are to maintain standards and to improve them by continuous research; to act as a central government laboratory for the application of non-nuclear physics to particular problems arising in industry and government departments; to pioneer the application of new physical ideas and techniques to industrial problems; and to pursue basic research on selected topics in the belief that practical applications may follow, in such spheres as the use of computers and engineering dynamics.

In 1991 the laboratory became an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry and in 1996 became a privatised company.