The Spalding Gentlemen's Society is a
learned society
A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...
based in
Spalding,
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
, England, concerned with cultural, scientific and
antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artefacts, archaeological and historic si ...
subjects. It is Britain's oldest such provincial body, founded in 1710 by
Maurice Johnson Maurice Johnson may refer to:
*Maurice Johnson (English politician) (1480–1551), English politician, Member of the Parliament of England for Stamford 1523–c.1539
*Maurice Johnson (antiquary) (1688–1755), British antiquary
*Maurice Johnson (Can ...
(1688–1755) of
Ayscoughfee Hall
Ayscoughfee Hall is a grade I listed building and modest associated parkland in central Spalding, Lincolnshire, England, and is a landmark on the fen tour.
History
The house, currently a museum, was built for a local wool merchant, tradi ...
. Membership is open to anyone aged 18 or over: the term "gentlemen" in the title is historical – there is no discrimination between men and women. Its
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
museum in Broad Street, Spalding, was designed by
Joseph Boothroyd Corby and opened in 1911; additions to the building ensued in 1925 and 1960. The carved outside panels were by Jules Tuerlinckx of
Malines, a
Belgian refugee in the First World War, and likely a grandson of Flemish sculptor
Joseph Tuerlinckx.
History
The Spalding Gentlemen's Society started in 1710 with informal meetings of a few gentlemen at a local
coffee house
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, Caffè americano, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually ...
in Spalding called Youngers. Many
gentlemen's club
A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally established by males from Britain's upper classes starting in the 17th century.
Many countries outside Britain have prominent gentlemen's clubs, mostly those associated with the ...
s formed in this way around that time. They talked about local antiquities and discussed the popular London newspaper ''
The Tatler''. In 1712 the society was organised in a more formal way as a ''Society of Gentlemen, for the supporting of mutual benevolence, and their improvement in the liberal sciences and in polite learning''. Officers were appointed and minutes were kept.
Francis Scott, 2nd Duke of Buccleuch
Francis Scott, 2nd Duke of Buccleuch, KT, FRS (11 January 1695 – 22 April 1751) was a Scottish nobleman.
Family background
Buccleuch was the son of Sir James Scott, Earl of Dalkeith (son of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and Anne Scot ...
(1695–1751), became Patron in 1732.
Records of the society's earliest activities have been published by the
Lincoln Record Society
Lincoln Record Society is a British text publication society founded in 1910 which edits and publishes historic records relating to Lincolnshire and the Diocese of Lincoln. The ancient diocese covered not only Lincolnshire, but also Leicesters ...
as ''The Correspondence of the Spalding Gentlemen's Society, 1710–1761'' and ''Minute-Books of The Spalding Gentlemen's Society, 1712–1755''. Later works appear in catalogues as produced by "Spalding Gentleman's Society" in 1892 and 1893.
Notable members
Noteworthy and early members of the "Gentlemen's Society at Spalding" include:
*Sir
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...
. Stukeley's unpublished memoir of Newton mentions his joining the society, and making a substantial donation of books.
*
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (17011773), also known as Job Ben Solomon, was a prominent Fulani Muslim prince from West Africa who was kidnapped and trafficked to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade, having previously owned and sold slaves hi ...
, freed slave, Muslim cleric and aristocrat from Senegal
*Dr
William Stukeley
William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...
, cleric and antiquary
*Sir
Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector. He had a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British ...
, President 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 ...
, whose museum and library formed the nucleus of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
*
"Honest Tom" Martin
Thomas Martin (8 March 1696/7 – 7 March 1771), known as "Honest Tom Martin of Palgrave", was an antiquarian and lawyer.
Early life
Martin was born at Thetford in the school house of St. Mary's parish, which is the only parish of that town si ...
, antiquary
*
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...
, poet
*
Alexander Gordon, antiquary
*Sir
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English Natural history, naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the European and American voyages of scientific exploration, 1766 natural-history ...
, naturalist and botanist
*
Emanuel Mendes da Costa
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (5 June 1717 – 31 May 1791) was an English botanist, naturalist, philosopher, and collector of valuable notes and of manuscripts, and of anecdotes of the literati. Da Costa became infamous for embezzling funds while wo ...
, botanist and conchologist
*Sir
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...
,
Gothic revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...
architect
*Alfred,
Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...
, Poet Laureate
*
George Vertue
George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period.
Life
Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields ...
, engraver
*
Joseph Ayloffe
Sir Joseph Ayloffe, 6th Baronet FRS, FSA (1708 – 19 April 1781, London) was an English antiquary.
Life
He was the great-grandson of Sir William Ayloffe, 1st Baronet, through his third wife (Alice, daughter of James Stokes of Stoke near Cov ...
, antiquary
*
John Anstis
John Anstis (29 August 1669 – 4 March 1744) was an English officer of arms, antiquarian and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1702 and 1722. He rose to the highest heraldic office in England and became Garter King of Arms in ...
, F.R.S.
Garter King of Arms
Garter Principal King of Arms (also Garter King of Arms or simply Garter) is the senior king of arms and officer of arms of the College of Arms, the heraldic authority with jurisdiction over England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The position ha ...
*
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peach ...
, the poet
*Rev.
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenis ...
, D.D., classical scholar
*Captain
John Perry, engineer
*
Pishey Thompson, historian of
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
*
Andrew Michael Ramsay
Sir Andrew Michael Ramsay (9 July 16866 May 1743), commonly called the Chevalier Ramsay, was a Scotland, Scottish-born writer who lived most of his adult life in France. He was a baronet in the Jacobite peerage. After visiting the Catholic a ...
, Scottish writer
*
Lord Curzon of Kedleston
*
Lord Peckover, Quaker banker and philanthropist of Wisbech
*
Lord Ancaster, the Society's Patron from 1960 to 1983
*
Francis Bellinger, LRCP, (d. 1721), English physician
Gallery
File:Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton (4670221).jpg, Isaac Newton
File:Stukeley William.jpg, William Stukeley
File:Joseph Banks 1810.jpg, Joseph Banks
File:Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson - Project Gutenberg eText 17768.jpg, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
File:AlexanderPope.jpg, Alexander Pope
File:Alexander Gordon, 2nd Duke of Gordon, after Godfrey Kneller.jpg, Alexander Gordon
File:George Vertue by Richardson.jpg, George Vertue
File:John Anstis Garter.jpg, John Anstis
File:John Gay - Project Gutenberg eText 13790.jpg, John Gay
File:Richard Bentley - Imagines philologorum.jpg, Richard Bentley
File:Li Hung Chang, Lord Salisbury, Lord Curzon-2.jpg, Lord Curzon
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
*
*
The Gentlemen's Society at Spalding: its origin and progress (1851)Bound with a catalogue of the society's library, 1893
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spalding Gentlemen's Society
1710 establishments in England
Scientific organizations established in 1710
Clubs and societies in England
Culture in Lincolnshire
History of Lincolnshire
Regional and local learned societies of the United Kingdom
Science and technology in Lincolnshire
Spalding, Lincolnshire
Organisations based in Lincolnshire
Scientific societies based in the United Kingdom
Museums in Lincolnshire