The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (also known as BRLSI) is an educational charity based in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Pl ...

, England. It was founded in 1824 and provides a museum, an independent library, exhibition space, meeting rooms and a programme of public lectures, discussion groups and exhibitions related to science, the arts and current affairs.

Origins: Science Lecturing in Georgian Bath

The early eighteenth century witnessed a vogue for science lecturing in the wake of the pioneering endeavours of scientists such as

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...

Edmund Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

and

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...

and the founding 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 ...

in 1662. Bath had long attracted students of chemistry and medicine keen to legitimise claims for the curative properties of its hot spring waters, and soon the patronage of the aristocracy heralded the first wave of the city's Georgian popularity. The first commercial public science (or

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancien ...

) lecture was presented by

John Theophilus Desaguliers John Theophilus Desaguliers FRS (12 March 1683 – 29 February 1744) was a British natural philosopher, clergyman, engineer and freemason who was elected to the Royal Society in 1714 as experimental assistant to Isaac Newton. He had studied at ...

in 1724, explaining the phenomenon of a total eclipse of the sun, which had occurred in May of that year. The lecture may well have been held at Mr. Harrison's

Assembly Rooms In Great Britain and Ireland, especially in the 18th century Britain, 18th and 19th centuries, assembly rooms were gathering places for members of the higher social classes open to members of both sexes. At that time most entertaining was done ...

in Terrace Walk, already becoming a popular venue for the well-heeled visitor to the city. Although it would continue to be host to such itinerant lecturers, it would be another 53 years before the first of Bath's scientific societies was formed.

The Bath and West Society

In 1777

Edmund Rack Edmund Rack (c.1735 – 22 February 1787), born in Norfolk, England, became well known in Bath, Somerset; he was a writer, particularly about agriculture, and founded notable societies. Life Rack was born in Attleborough, Norfolk, about 1735, son ...

, the son of a Norfolk labouring weaver, founded the first of Bath's scientific and literary societies. Although partly modelled on the Royal Society of London and other such institutions, Rack was particularly concerned with agricultural and planting improvements in the West Country and so the society would be known as the Bath and West of England Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (later to become the

Royal Bath and West of England Society The Royal Bath and West of England Society is a charitable society founded in 1777 to promote and improve agriculture and related activities around the West Country of England. Based at the Royal Bath and West of England Society Showground nea ...

, its home moving from Bath to

Shepton Mallet Shepton Mallet is a market town and civil parish in the Mendip District of Somerset, England, some south-west of Bath, south of Bristol and east of Wells. It had an estimated population of 10,810 in 2019. Mendip District Council is based ...

in 1974 after 196 years with its headquarters in the city). The Bath society published Aims, Rules and Orders and, like its London progenitor, offered prizes or 'premiums' for enterprising projects. These included improvements in areas such as animal husbandry, farm implements and country crafts. Members included William Smith, the 'father of English Geology', whose connections through the society would encourage his geological work in identifying the relationship between rock strata and the distinctive fossils associated with them.

The Bath Philosophical Societies

The first of three Philosophical Societies was inaugurated in 1779, founded by Thomas Curtis with Edmund Rack once more at the helm, as secretary. With the aim of being ''a select Literary Society for the purpose of discussing scientific and philosophical subjects and making experiments to illustrate them'', the model for this venture would have been provincial discussion groups such as the

Lunar Society The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 ...

. The Bath Philosophical Societies did not quite have the staying power of the Birmingham-based forum and after three incarnations quietly folded. Despite its failure to thrive the society could still boast influential and important subscribers including

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline ...

(whose discovery of Uranus was made in 1781 whilst a resident of the city), and

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted ...

who at Bowood House in nearby Calne was embarking on his most important scientific investigations on different kinds of air (including his discovery of

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements ...

The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution

It was in 1824 that the most robust of Bath's literary and scientific societies was founded. Its first home was a grand new building designed by George Allen Underwood on the site of Harrison's Assembly Rooms in Terrace Walk (which had been destroyed by fire in 1820).

The Duke of York Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English (later British) monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was Du ...

was the first patron of the Institution and its first president was

Marquis of Lansdowne Marquess of Lansdowne is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1784, and held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. The first Marquess served as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Origins This branch of the Fitzmaurice famil ...

(the son of Joseph Priestley's one-time employer, Lord Sherburne). The first curator of the Institution was

William Lonsdale William Lonsdale (9 September 1794 in Bath11 November 1871 in Bristol), English geologist and palaeontologist, won the Wollaston medal in 1846 for his research on the various kinds of fossil corals. Biography He was educated for the army and i ...

. Lonsdale was a geologist and his study of fossils found in South Devon limestones informed the work of

Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on ...

and

Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, (19 February 1792 – 22 October 1871) was a Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and ...

in establishing (after much controversy) the basis for a geological period between the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferou ...

and the

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleoz ...

: the

Devonian Period The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...

. The 'Royal' prefix was added when

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

continued the patronage bestowed upon the Institution by The Duke of Clarence (later

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

Some notable members of the BRLSI

Leonard Jenyns Leonard Jenyns (25 May 1800 – 1 September 1893) was an English clergyman, author and naturalist. He was forced to take on the name Leonard Blomefield to receive an inheritance. He is chiefly remembered for his detailed phenology observations ...

(later Blomefield) (1800–1893) founded the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club in 1855, which operated under auspices of the BRLSI. Jenyns was a lifelong friend of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

and famously turned down the opportunity to be the naturalist aboard

HMS Beagle HMS ''Beagle'' was a 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803 (roughly equivalent to £ in 2018), was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on t ...

's voyage to South America. Jenyns recommended the young Charles Darwin to Captain

Robert FitzRoy Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra de ...

. * Charles Moore (1815–1881) was an eminent geologist whose most spectacular fossil finds came from a single strata 15 cm-thick at Strawberry bank near

Ilminster Ilminster is a minster town and civil parish in the South Somerset district of Somerset, England, with a population of 5,808. Bypassed in 1988, the town now lies just east of the junction of the A303 (London to Exeter) and the A358 (Taunton to C ...

. His discovery of what he named the 'saurian, fish and insect bed' was made after observing two boys rolling a pebble, or nodule, to each other, which upon splitting apart revealed a beautifully preserved fossil fish of the genus '' Pachycormus''. In the following years he amassed a collection of hundreds of marine specimens from the site, many displaying remarkable soft tissue preservation. In 2010 the BRLSI received a grant of £62,250 from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation for a research and conservation project devoted to Moore's Strawberry Bank fossil collection.

Collections

The Institution's antiquarian library contains over 7000 volumes, including the Jenyns and the Broome natural history libraries. Its archives contain bound volumes of letters from eminent scientists and naturalists such as

, Professor

John Stevens Henslow John Stevens Henslow (6 February 1796 – 16 May 1861) was a British priest, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin. Early life Henslow was born at Rochester, Kent, the son of a solicit ...

and Sir

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of ...

. Smaller collections cover theology, government, travel and local history. Four paintings by

Andrea Casali Andrea Casali (17 November 1705 – 7 September 1784) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period. He was also an art dealer in England. ''Angelica e Medoro'', Bemberg Fondation Toulouse He was born in Civitavecchia in the Papal States and stu ...

and a photography collection by the Reverend Francis Lockey (1796–1869) are also featured.

Present Location

In 1932 a road improvement scheme entailed the demolition of the Terrace Walk and the Institution moved to 16–18 Queen Square. This Georgian

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

building, designed by John Pinch the younger in 1830, is now

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

Grade I.

References

Bibliography

* * Wallis, Peter (Ed.) (2008). ''Innovation and Discovery: Bath and the Rise of Science''. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and The William Herschel Society.

External links

BRLSI web siteBRLSI on Culture24BRLSI at MLA
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bath Royal Literary And Scientific Institution Royal Literary and Scientific Institution Royal Literary and Scientific Institution Royal Literary and Scientific Institution Organizations established in 1824 Regional and local learned societies of the United Kingdom Literary societies Scientific organisations based in the United Kingdom Organisations based in Somerset with royal patronage Museums in Bath, Somerset Natural history museums in England 1824 establishments in England Art museums and galleries in Somerset Scientific organizations established in 1824 Science and technology in Somerset Charities based in Somerset