The origins and foundation of the Royal Society of London

Bibliographic Data

ID20316626
AuthorsDouglas Mckie (Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of London, corresponding author)
Year1960
Volume15
Issue1
Pages1-37
Publication date1960-07-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNotes and Records the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0035-9149 • E-ISSN: 1743-0178
PublisherThe Royal Society (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1098/rsnr.1960.0001
OpenAlexW2100527245
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Three hundred years ago, on Wednesday 28 November 1660, the Royal Society of London, although not then so entitled, was formally constituted at Gresham College in the City of London by ‘these persons following’, as the Journal Book of the Society records, namely, ‘The Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, Mr. Hill’, and ‘according to the Manner in other Countryes, where there were voluntary associations of men into Academies for the advancement of various parts of learning, So they might doe something answerable here for the promoting of Experimentall Philosophy.’ By a First Charter, granted by King Charles II on 15 July 1662, the Society became the Royal Society, and by a Second, dated 22 April 1663, the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge. The movement that led to these events originated in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts: it was the English expression of those scientific interests and activities that were developing generally in western Europe and we therefore turn to that wider scene

Charter · Political science · Queen (butterfly) · Sociology · Classics · Historical Philosophy and Science · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Philosophy and History of Science

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub