Founding of the Royal Society (1660): Science in London

The Royal Society was founded on 28 November 1660, when twelve men meeting at Gresham College in London resolved to set up a society to promote experimental science. Chartered by King Charles II in 1662 and 1663 as the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, it became the centre of English science during the Scientific Revolution. It is the oldest national scientific academy in continuous existence.

Background: the new philosophy

In the early seventeenth century a growing number of European scholars rejected the reliance on Aristotle and ancient authority that dominated the universities. They wanted knowledge of nature built on observation, experiment and mathematics. Galileo, Kepler and Descartes were among its leading voices on the Continent.

In England the most influential programme came from Francis Bacon. His Novum Organum of 1620 called for the patient collection of facts and experiments as the basis of a reformed natural philosophy. His utopian story New Atlantis (1626) described “Salomon’s House”, an institution of researchers working together for the benefit of humanity. Many of the Society’s founders saw themselves as building Bacon’s vision.

Scientific societies already existed elsewhere. The Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, founded in 1603, counted Galileo as a member, and the Accademia del Cimento in Florence began in 1657. In Paris, Marin Mersenne’s correspondence network linked scholars across Europe.

The informal groups of the 1640s and 1650s

The Royal Society grew out of informal meetings during the turbulent years of the English Civil War and the republic. From about 1645 a group interested in “the new philosophy” met weekly in London, sometimes at Gresham College, sometimes in private houses. The mathematician John Wallis later recalled that it had been suggested by the German-born scholar Theodore Haak.

When several members moved to Oxford in the late 1640s, a second circle formed around John Wilkins, Warden of Wadham College. Known as the Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club, it included Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Seth Ward, William Petty and the young Robert Hooke. Its members performed experiments, dissected animals, observed the skies and discussed the latest work from abroad.

Gresham College, founded under the will of the Elizabethan merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, gave free public lectures in the City of London. By the late 1650s several of the Oxford group held its professorships, and Gresham became the natural meeting place in London.

The meeting of 28 November 1660

The Restoration of Charles II in May 1660 brought renewed stability and a monarch personally interested in science. On Wednesday 28 November 1660, after a lecture by Christopher Wren, then Gresham Professor of Astronomy, twelve men withdrew to discuss forming a more formal body.

They were Lord Brouncker, Robert Boyle, Alexander Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, John Wilkins, Jonathan Goddard, William Petty, Lawrence Rooke, Christopher Wren, William Balle and Abraham Hill. With Wilkins in the chair, they agreed to found “a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning”. They agreed to meet weekly, charge an admission fee of ten shillings and a weekly subscription of one shilling, and drew up a list of 41 people judged suitable to join.

The following week, on 5 December, Sir Robert Moray, a Scottish soldier and courtier with access to the king, reported that Charles II approved of the design.

Royal charters

The king’s support took legal form in a first royal charter, which passed the Great Seal on 15 July 1662. It created a corporation with a president, council and fellows. William, 2nd Viscount Brouncker, a mathematician, was named the first president.

A second charter of 22 April 1663 extended the Society’s privileges and gave it its full name: the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Charles II declared himself the Society’s founder and patron and presented it with a silver-gilt ceremonial mace, which is still used at formal meetings. The Society adopted a coat of arms and the motto Nullius in verba, usually translated “take nobody’s word for it”.

Royal patronage brought prestige but no money. The Society depended on fellows’ subscriptions, which many failed to pay, and its finances were often precarious in its early decades.

Early members and work

The first secretaries were John Wilkins and Henry Oldenburg, a German-born scholar from Bremen who conducted an enormous correspondence with scientists across Europe. In November 1662 Robert Hooke was appointed Curator of Experiments, charged with preparing several experiments for each weekly meeting.

Membership was broad. Besides natural philosophers, it included physicians, merchants, courtiers, clergy and aristocrats; the diarists John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys were early fellows. By the mid-1660s there were well over a hundred fellows, though only a minority attended regularly.

Meetings featured demonstrations and discussion. Boyle’s air pump, built with Hooke, was used to study air pressure and respiration. Fellows examined microscopic specimens, compared reports of strange natural events, and experimented with blood transfusion between animals; in November 1667 Richard Lower and Edmund King transfused sheep’s blood into a volunteer named Arthur Coga before the Society. The Society also sought practical knowledge, collecting histories of trades and supporting work on navigation and agriculture.

Its imprimatur appeared on key books, including Hooke’s Micrographia of 1665 and, later, Isaac Newton’s Principia in 1687, published during the presidency of Samuel Pepys and paid for by Edmond Halley.

Philosophical Transactions

On 6 March 1665 Henry Oldenburg issued the first number of Philosophical Transactions, initially as his own private venture licensed by the Society’s council. It reported experiments, observations and letters from correspondents in England and abroad.

The journal became one of the Society’s most lasting contributions. By printing discoveries with their authors’ names and dates, it helped establish priority and peer scrutiny as foundations of scientific practice. It is the oldest scientific journal still in publication.

Critics and defenders

The new Society was not universally admired. Some clergy and university men feared that experimental philosophy would undermine religion or classical learning. Satirists mocked the fellows for weighing air and studying insects; Thomas Shadwell’s comedy The Virtuoso (1676) lampooned a foolish experimenter, and Samuel Butler wrote verses at their expense.

In response the Society commissioned Thomas Sprat, a young clergyman, to write The History of the Royal-Society of London, published in 1667. Despite its title it was largely a defence, presenting experimental science as useful, loyal to the Crown and compatible with the Church of England.

Myths and facts

Myth: the Royal Society grew directly out of Boyle’s “invisible college”. In letters of 1646–1647 the young Robert Boyle mentioned an “invisible college”. Historians debate what he meant, and it may have been a different circle of reformers interested in practical improvement. The link to the Royal Society is uncertain.

Myth: Newton was a founder. Isaac Newton was an undergraduate in 1660. He was elected a Fellow only in 1672 and became president in 1703.

Myth: the Society was paid for by the king. Charles II gave his name, charters and a mace, but no regular funding.

By the numbers

Later history

The Society’s early years were not easy. Attendance at meetings fell sharply during the Great Plague of 1665, when many fellows left London, and the council repeatedly struggled to collect arrears of subscriptions. Hooke, paid little and overworked, carried much of the experimental programme on his own for years.

After the Great Fire of London in 1666 the Society met at Arundel House, the home of the Howard family, before returning to Gresham College. It moved to Crane Court off Fleet Street in 1710, to Somerset House in 1780, to Burlington House in 1857 and to Carlton House Terrace in 1967. Isaac Newton’s long presidency from 1703 to 1727 raised its scientific standing, though it was marked by bitter disputes, including the priority quarrel with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the invention of calculus. Over time it changed from a club open to gentlemen of any interest into a body electing fellows for scientific distinction.

Timeline

• 1620: Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum.
• c. 1645: Informal scientific meetings begin in London.
• 1650s: The Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club meets around John Wilkins.
• 1660, 28 November: Twelve men at Gresham College agree to found a society for experimental learning.
• 1660, 5 December: Sir Robert Moray reports the king’s approval.
• 1662, 15 July: The first royal charter passes the Great Seal; Brouncker becomes president.
• 1663, 22 April: The second charter names the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
• 1665, 6 March: The first issue of Philosophical Transactions appears.
• 1667: Thomas Sprat publishes his History of the Royal-Society.
• 1687: Newton’s Principia is published under the Society’s imprimatur.

Why it matters

The Royal Society turned the ideals of the Scientific Revolution into a lasting institution. Its emphasis on experiment, open reporting and judgement by evidence rather than authority shaped how science is still organised, and its journal created the model for scientific publishing worldwide.