The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit. & Phil., is one of the oldest

learned societies A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership may ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and second oldest provincial

learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an discipline (academia), academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and s ...

(after the

Spalding Gentlemen's Society The Spalding Gentlemen's Society is a learned society based in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England, concerned with cultural, scientific and antiquarian subjects. It is Britain's oldest such provincial body, founded in 1710 by Maurice Johnson (1688 ...

). Prominent members have included

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. He strove to improve factory working conditions, promoted e ...

John Dalton John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour b ...

James Prescott Joule James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 11 October 1889) was an English physicist, mathematician and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). Th ...

, Sir William Fairbairn,

Tom Kilburn Tom Kilburn (11 August 1921 – 17 January 2001) was an English mathematician and computer scientist. Over the course of a productive 30-year career, he was involved in the development of five computers of great historical significance. With ...

Peter Mark Roget Peter Mark Roget ( ; 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869) was a British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer and founding secretary of The Portico Library. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the '' Thesaurus of English Words ...

Sir Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

Sir Joseph Whitworth Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet (21 December 1803 – 22 January 1887) was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw ...

and

Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...

History

It was established in February 1781, as the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, by

Thomas Percival Thomas Percival (29 September 1740 – 30 August 1804) was an English physician, health reformer, ethicist and author who wrote an early code of medical ethics. He drew up a pamphlet with the code in 1794 and wrote an expanded version in 18 ...

, Thomas Barnes, Thomas Henry,

Thomas Butterworth Bayley Thomas Butterworth Bayley (1744–1802) was an English magistrate, agriculturist and philanthropist. Background He was from an old Lancashire family, and his mother was one of the Dukinfields of Dukinfield, Cheshire. Shortly after completing ...

and others. The first formal meeting of the society took place on 14 March 1781. Meetings were held in a back room of

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street Chapel is a Unitarian church in central Manchester, England. It is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarians. Its present minister is Cody Coyne. His ...

until December 1799, after which the society moved into its own premises in George Street.

conducted his experiments at these premises. The Society's original premises on George Street were destroyed during the

Manchester Blitz The Manchester Blitz (also known as the Christmas Blitz) was the heavy bombing of the city of Manchester and its surrounding areas in North West England during the Second World War by the German ''Luftwaffe''. It was one of three major raids o ...

(around January 1941), at which time its library comprised more than 50,000 volumes as well as historic artefacts, portraits, and archives. Its replacement (built in the 1960s) was constructed using high alumina cement (referred to as having "concrete cancer") and was demolished in the 1980s. It became a registered charity (No. 235313) in 1964. Membership is open to anyone aged over 16 years and lectures are held both in person at venues in Manchester City Centre, and (since 2020) online. There are on average 30 lectures each season and non-members are welcome to attend. The society has more than 400 members. The Society operates from an office situated in Colony Jactin House,

Ancoats Ancoats is an area of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. It is located next to the Northern Quarter, the northern part of Manchester city centre. Historically in Lancashire, Ancoats became a cradle of the Industrial Revolution and has ...

, Manchester, and has three permanent staff.

Activities

The Society organises a range of lectures, including the

Wilde Wilde is a surname. Notable people with the name include: In arts and entertainment In film, television, and theatre * ''Wilde'' a 1997 biographical film about Oscar Wilde * Andrew Wilde (actor), English actor * Barbie Wilde (born 1960), Canadi ...

Joule The joule ( , ; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force applied ...

and

Dalton Dalton may refer to: Science * Dalton (crater), a lunar crater * Dalton (program), chemistry software * Dalton (unit) (Da), the atomic mass unit * John Dalton, chemist, physicist and meteorologist Entertainment * Dalton (Buffyverse), minor cha ...

Lectures and three lectures annually specifically for Young People. The most prestigious lectures are the Percival Lecture and the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Lecture, and in some years the most distinguished speakers are presented with the

Dalton Medal The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit. & Phil., is one of the oldest learned societies in the United Kingdom and second oldest provincial learned society (after the Spalding Gentlemen's Society). Promine ...

. Since the local universities ceased offering extra-curricular courses the Lit. & Phil. has seen an increase in both membership and in the attendance of non-members at lectures.

Members

Notable Members, in addition to those above, have included the

Nobel Laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...

, Sir Robert Robinson, Sir Norman Haworth, and

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...

, as well as

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israel ...

Hans Geiger Johannes Wilhelm "Hans" Geiger (; ; 30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945) was a German physicist. He is best known as the co-inventor of the detector component of the Geiger counter and for the Geiger–Marsden experiment which discover ...

, Sir William Roberts, Lyon, Lord Playfair,

William Gaskell William Gaskell (24 July 1805 – 12 June 1884) was an English Unitarian minister, charity worker and pioneer in the education of the working class. The husband of novelist and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, he was himself a writer and poet, and ...

, Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney,

Charles William Sutton Charles William Sutton (1848–1920) was a British librarian and author. Career Sutton was librarian of the Free Manchester Public Libraries. He was also Secretary of the Chetham Society from 1890 to 1920, Editor of the Lancashire and Cheshire ...

, Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth,

Joseph Jordan Joseph or Joe Jordan may refer to: * Joseph Jordan (Royal Navy officer), English naval officer * Joe Jordan (born 1951), Scottish international football player and coach * Joe Jordan (politician) (born 1958), Canadian politician * Joe Jordan (musi ...

Henry Moseley Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley (; 23 November 1887 – 10 August 1915) was an English physicist, whose contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic num ...

, Sir Adolphus William Ward,

Stanley Jevons William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 183513 August 1882) was an English economist and logician. Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method in eco ...

James Prince Lee James Prince Lee (28 July 1804 – 24 December 1869) was an English clergyman and schoolmaster who became head master of King Edward's School, Birmingham, and was later the first Bishop of Manchester. Early life Born in London, Lee was educa ...

Sir Edward Leader Williams Sir Edward Leader Williams (28 April 1828 – 1 January 1910) was an English civil engineer, chiefly remembered as the designer of the Manchester Ship Canal, but also heavily involved in other canal projects in north Cheshire. Early life ...

William Axon William Edward Armytage Axon (13 January 1846 – 27 December 1913) was an English librarian, antiquary and journalist for the ''Manchester Guardian''. He contributed to the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' under his initials W. E. A. A. H ...

, Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth,

Samuel Greg Samuel Greg (26 March 1758 – 4 June 1834) was an Irish-born industrialist and entrepreneur of the early Industrial Revolution and a pioneer of the factory system. He built Quarry Bank Mill, which at his retirement was the largest textile mil ...

Sir Edward Frankland Sir Edward Frankland, (18 January 18259 August 1899) was an English chemist. He was one of the originators of organometallic chemistry and introduced the concept of combining power or valence. An expert in water quality and analysis, he was ...

Samuel Hibbert-Ware Samuel Hibbert-Ware (21 April 1782 – 30 December 1848), born Samuel Hibbert in St Ann's Square Manchester, was an English geologist and antiquarian. Life He was the eldest son of Samuel Hibbert (d.1815), a linen yarn merchant, and his wife S ...

and

Moses Tyson Moses Tyson (born 1897, Westmorland; died 1969), was a British historian and librarian who was Keeper of Western Manuscripts at the John Rylands Library from 1927 to 1935 and then Librarian of the Manchester University Library from 1935 until 1 ...

. Honorary Members have included Stephen Hawking,

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important ...

Robert Bunsen Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (; 30 March 1811 – 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff. The Bu ...

Sergey Kapitsa Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa (russian: Сергей Петрович Капица; 14 February 192814 August 2012) was a Russian physicist and demographer. He was best known as host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV show, ''Evident ...

Dmitri Mendeleev Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (sometimes transliterated as Mendeleyev or Mendeleef) ( ; russian: links=no, Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев, tr. , ; 8 February Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._27_January.html" ;"title="O ...

, Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw,

Jöns Jacob Berzelius Baron Jöns Jacob Berzelius (; by himself and his contemporaries named only Jacob Berzelius, 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Berzelius is considered, along with Robert Boyle, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier, to be on ...

and John Mercer.

''Memoirs''

The society's ''Memoirs and Proceedings'' (first published in 1783) was, at the time of its launch, the only regular

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

in the United Kingdom except for the ''

Philosophical Transactions ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...

of the Royal Society''. The ''Manchester Memoirs'' has been published continuously since the first edition. It contains the transactions of the society (most notably the text of many recent lectures) and is distributed to members and to similar institutions and libraries throughout the world by subscription. Copies are also available for purchase by non-members.

Dalton Medal

Named in honour of the Society's longest-serving President, the scientist

, the Dalton Medal is a distinction rarely bestowed and is the Society’s highest award. It is given to those who have made a distinguished contribution to science. Since 1898 the medal has been awarded on only fifteen occasions: all recipients have been Fellows of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and many have been

. Several medallists have had Manchester and

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

/Owens College connections with the Departments of

Physics and Astronomy Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rela ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

and

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

. So far, only one woman has been a recipient of this medal.

Officers

Presidents

Secretaries

Treasurers

References

Notes Bibliography * * * *

External links

Scholarly Societies – Man. Lit and PhilManchester Lit and Phil – official websiteMemoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society, from 1888 to 1922 – Biodiversity Library
{{authority control Organisations based in Manchester Scientific societies based in the United Kingdom 1781 establishments in England Organizations established in 1781 Organisations based in Greater Manchester Charities based in Manchester Charities based in Greater Manchester Culture in Manchester L Science and technology in Greater Manchester Publications established in 1783 Annual journals Clubs and societies in Greater Manchester Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society