The chairman of the Royal Institution (Ri) says an anonymous donation of £4.4m is enough to clear the organisation’s debt but that its financial troubles are far from being solved.

Sir Richard Skyes revealed the anonymous donation at a special general meeting of the Institution’s members on 19 March.

In a Guardian column last month he revealed Ri was operating with annual deficit of around £600,000 and was £5m in debt.

Ri, established in 1799, is dedicated to science education and communication and includes Professor Lord Robert Winston among its members.

Its headquarters at Albemarle St include the free-entry Faraday Museum and some of the most important scientific collections and archives in the world.

The headquarters were extensively refurbished in 2008 to the tune of £22m, but insufficient funding for the project resulted in the disposal of income generating property assets and a depleted endowment.

Image: Tim Mitchell/Royal Institution