Banks remained in undisputed possession of the chair till his death in 1820.
The excellent qualities of the President whom this victory kept in the chair were clearly exhibited by the temper with which he regarded the opposition. The sketch of his character (says Barrow) given by Lord Brougham is true to the life: "He showed no jealousy of any rival, no prejudice in anybody's favour rather than another's. He was equally accessible to all for counsel and help. His house, his library, his whole valuable collections, were at all times open to men of science, while his credit both with our own and foreign Governments, and, if need were, the resource of his purse, were ever ready to help in the prosecution of their inquiries."
One of the earliest official acts of the new President was a proof of the estimation in which he held his late fellow—voyager Cook. On the death of the latter in 1779, Banks proposed to the Council that a medal should be struck as a mark of the high sense entertained by the Society of the importance of his extensive discoveries in different parts of the globe, the cost being defrayed by subscription among the Fellows. The medal, designed by L. Pingo, bears a portrait of the great navigator in profile on the obverse, with a representation of Britannia pointing to the south pole of a globe on the reverse.
Amongst other noteworthy services rendered by Banks in his capacity as President of the Royal Society, the following may be mentioned. In 1784 the Council obtained the permission of George III. to commence a geodetical survey under General Roy: this served as the basis of the Ordnance Survey. In the following year he made successful application to the king to guarantee the cost (amounting to £4000) of Sir William Herschel's 40-foot telescope. He served on a committee of the Society appointed, at the instance of the Secretary of State, to ascertain the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds of time at various localities in Great Britain. In 1817 the Council at his suggestion recommended Government to fit out an Arctic expedition:
