The twentieth Annual Congress of the British Institute of Radiology was held in the Church House, Dean's Yard, Westminster, on December 4 and 5, 1958. In opening the Congress, the President, Dr. Blair Hartley, of Manchester, pointed out that it was just 27 years since that city had provided a President of the Institute: it was Alfred Barclay. He referred to the granting of a Charter to the Institute by Her Majesty the Queen, thus establishing it as a leading radiological body. Dr. Blair Hartley traced the history of measures to safeguard the use of X rays and radioactive substances, and showed how the Institute, first by participating in the founding of the British X-ray and Radium Protection Committee in 1921, and subsequently by its continued support of all movements to this end, had not only taken the lead but had played a significant voluntary role in this important field until the responsibility was taken over in 1952 by a statutory committee appointed under the Radioactive Substances Act.