Scholarly Societies Project

Lunar Society of Birmingham

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Lunar Society =
Lunar Society of Birmingham
Founding of the Society
Year
Authority / Notes
1775
The first meeting of the Lunar Society is given as Sunday, 31 December 1775 on p.141 of Schofield (1963).

The history of the Lunar Society is, however, rather complex. According to pp.33-117 of Schofield (1963), it was preceeded (1765-1775) by informal meetings of a group that Schofield names the Lunar Circle.

According to p. 3 of Schofield (1963), it was a small group comprised of only 14 members, including Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Galton, Joseph Priestly, Jonathan Stokes, James Watt, and Josiah Wedgewood (the renowned potter); and it specialized in the application of science and technology to industry.

The group took the name Lunar Society, according to p.3 and p.145 of Schofield (1963), because they generally scheduled their dinner meetings on the Sunday or Monday closest to the Full Moon. The website for a latter-day Birmingham-based Lunar Society indicates that the proximity of meetings of the original Lunar Society to the Full Moon was "to make travel easier before the days of street lighting."

According to p.4 of Schofield (1963), the Lunar Society never published its proceedings.

Seat of the Society
City
Authority / Notes
Birmingham
England
This location is supported by Schofield (1963), a detailed historical monograph on the Lunar Society.
Name of the Society
Dates
Name
Authority
1775 - 1809? Lunar Society
[Sometimes referred to as: Lunar Society of Birmingham .]
The first meeting of the Lunar Society is given as Sunday, December 31 1775 on p.141 of Schofield (1963). And on p.414 of Schofield (1963), Schofield indicates that the Lunar Society went into decline after 1791, but he acknowledges that Eric Robinson had cited evidence of meetings of the Lunar Society as late as 1801.

The website for a latter-day Birmingham-based Lunar Society gives a cessation date of 1809 for its eighteenth-century predecessor.

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