GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES 61 daily medical rounds, but when the distinguished Humphry Davy joined the group – he termed his companions ‘the Geophilists’ – he urged that future meetings should be held following a dinner arranged within the convivial atmosphere of some favourite hostelry His proposal found favour A dinner was arranged to be held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, in London’s Great Queen Street, on 13 November 1807 Eleven gentlemen attended One of them was Davy He expected to see the Geophilists transformed into a properly constituted dining club (what he termed ‘a little talking Geological Dinner Club’), but what he actually witnessed that evening was an event of a very different order of magnitude He saw founded the Geological Society of London It was the world’s first society to be devoted exclusively to the science of geology The resolution adopted that November evening read as follows: That there be forthwith instituted a Geological Society for the purpose of making Geologists acquainted with each other, of stimulating their zeal, of inducing them to adopt one nomenclature, of facilitating the communi cation of new facts, and of ascertaining what is known in their science, & what remains to be discovered Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), the president of the Royal Society, asked to be enrolled within the new body, but he soon had second thoughts He had believed himself to be joining a geological dining club; he now discovered that the former Geophilists were aspiring to become a full-blown scientific society For over a 100 years, geology had been a constituent of the Royal Society’s empire of science Now this upstart society seemed to be laying claim to geology as its own special preserve Further, for a loyal Fellow of the Royal Society to become a member of the Geological Society was then seen as akin to being guilty of scientific bigamy Banks, Davy, and several others who in all innocence had joined the new society promptly submitted their resignations Geological Society of London Despite so inauspicious a beginning, the Geological Society of London prospered Geology flourished: it was the most ‘popular’ science of the greater part of the nineteenth century And for much of that century, the Geological Society of London was a cynosure for the world’s geological eyes The society had reached a membership of 450 by 1825, the year in which the society was granted the Royal Charter of Incorporation, under which its members were to be transformed into ‘Fellows’ Honorary members were elected from all over the British Isles during the society’s early years; from 1814, overseas geologists were elected as foreign members, and in 1863, there was added the additional category of foreign correspondent The society first acquired its own premises in 1808; in 1828, the government provided the society with rent-free accommodation, first at Somerset House (1828–74) and then at Burlington House (1874–present) By its centenary in 1907, the society possessed a total of 1356 Fellows and overseas members From the outset, a prime function of the society was the holding of regular meetings at which papers were to be read and discussed The first two papers, by Richard Knight (1768–1844) and Jacques-Louis, Comte de Bournon (1751–1825), were read following a dinner held at the Freemasons’ Tavern on December 1807, and since then tens of thousands of papers have been presented before the society On March 1824, the society received its first communication from a woman, Mrs Maria Graham (later Lady Maria Callcott; 1785–1842), and from 1887, the society received many papers from female authors It was nevertheless March 1919 before the society finally resolved to open its fellowship to women geologists The first woman to hold the presidency of the society, between 1982 and 1984, was Janet Vida Watson (1923–85) The young society set about the collection of geological information out of which, it was hoped, there might emerge a true theory of the earth To assist geological observers, the society in 1808 compiled and circulated a questionnaire entitled Geological Inquiries This 20-page pamphlet was widely noted and was even reprinted in the United States within the American Mineralogical Journal As a further manifestation of its desire to assemble and use geological information, the society in 1808 began the compilation of a geological map of England and Wales This task was carried out under the direction of George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855), the society’s first president (1807–13) The map was published, at a scale of inch to miles (1:380 160), on May 1820 (not November 1819, as recorded on the map), and subsequent editions were published by the society in 1840 and 1865 The society in 1808 founded a museum to contain rocks, minerals, and fossils from around the world, but unsolicited gifts eventually converted the museum into an incubus Inadequately housed and curated, the collection was disbanded in 1911, part of it being given to the Museum of Practical Geology in London’s Jermyn Street (now the Museum of the Geological Survey at Keyworth, Nottinghamshire) and the remainder going to the British Museum (Natural History) (now the Natural History Museum in London’s Cromwell Road) Happier is the story