Journal Books of Scientific Meetings, 1660-1800; Council Minutes, 1660-1800; Miscellaneous...

RS2

Journal Books of Scientific Meetings, 1660-1800; Council Minutes, 1660-1800; Miscellaneous Manuscripts

1667 - 1800

The activities and growth of the Society, as well as those scientific advances within its purview, are traced in the Journal Books of Scientific Meetings, 1660-1800, the Council Minutes, 1660-1800, and the Miscellaneous Manuscripts.

The Journal Books contain the minutes of the ordinary meetings of the Royal Society. Extensive entries that unfold valuable information not recorded elsewhere are to be found in these Volumes. Included are abstracts of papers read before the Society, reports of scientific discussions, notations concerning books and rarities that were brought to the attention of the membership, and presidential addresses delivered at the anniversary meetings. The Journal Books have been filmed by the Royal Society. The collection occupies thirty-seven Volumes numbered 1 to 37, with in'ividual Volumes organized chronologically.

The eleven volumes of Council Minutes detail the operational and administrative, rather than purely scientific, side of the Society's long history. The chronologically organized Volumes, numbered 1 to 11, have been filmed by the Royal Society. A comprehensive index of principal persons and events referred to in the Council Minutes has been included on the microfilm.

Miscellaneous Manuscripts, a fourteen-Volume collection of more than 1,800 letters and private papers written by Britain's foremost men of science, document the more important and lasting of their contributions to the history of scientific inquiry. These manuscripts, like the other two collections included in the present publication, have been filmed by the Royal Society. An index to each Volume has been included in the microfilm. The fourteen indexes outline principal authors and correspondents, the origins and dates of correspondence and other documents, and brief remarks about the material.

Note on Filming

When the Royal Society's rare and fragile documents were filmed in England several years ago, a number of them were filmed upside down. This should cause no inconvenience to the researcher using the present collection, who will simply rotate the film carriage 180° tk obtain a normal view of the inverted document pages. The reels and Volumes listed below contain documents that were filmed upside down.

Journal Books of Scientific Meetings, 1660-1800

Reel 1 Volumes 2-3

Reel 2 Volume 4

Reel 3 Volumes 8-10

Reel 5 Volume 14

Reel 6 Volumes 16-17

Reel 7 Volumes 18-19

Reel 8 Volume 20

Reel 9 Volumes 22-23

Reel 10 Volume 24

Reel 11 Volume 25

Reel 12 Volume 26

Reel 13 Volume 27-28

Reel 17 Volume 35

Council Minutes, 1660-1800

Reel 1 Volumes 1 and 4

Reel 2 Volumes 5-8

Reel 3 Volumes 9-10

English

62 Volumes

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge is the oldest national scientific academy in the world with a continuous existence. Having been in the forefront of national and international scientific activity for more than three centuries, the Royal Society houses one of the most precious collections of manuscript records and early printed materials in existence--a collection that illuminates as does no other the evolution of empirical thinking and the rapid pace of intellectual discovery. The papers now published in microform by University Publications of America fittingly reflect the Royal Society's rich heritage.

The origins of the Royal Society date back to the year 1645, when a group of eminent British thinkers began to meet regularly in London to discuss the new, experimental philosophies of science. They recognized the need to arrive at a fulher understanding of these innovative ideas through open dialogue. The English Civil War and the Cromwellian Protectorate periodically interrupted their meetings, however, and when certain group members (e.g., Robert Boyle and John Wilkins) left London for the academic haven of Oxford, the meetings were temporarily held there, at Wadham College. London once again became the meeting site after the Restoration.

On November 28, 1660, following a lecture by Christopher Wren at Gresham College, the group "withdrew to Mr. Rooke's apartments for mutuall converse. Where, amongst other matters that were discoursed of, something was offered about the designe of founding a college for Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experiments of Learning." Those present at that meeting, the first to be recorded in the Society's Journal Books of Scientific Meetings, were Wren, Boyle, Wilkins, Lawrence Rooke, Lord Brouncker, Robert Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Jonathan Goddard, William Petty, William Balle, and Abraham Hill. These scholare were thus the Original Founder Fellows of the Royal Society, which was formally constituted in 1660. Two years later King Charles II, himself much interested in scientific developments, granted the Society its first charter. A second royal charter was granted in 1663, when the Society was given its official name and coat of arms. By virtue of the labors of the far-sighted founders of the Royal Society, the future of British science was secured.