The Geological Society of London (1807) is the UK national society for geoscience. It is a learned and professional body, and a Registered Charity (No. 210161). It exists to promote the geosciences and the professional interests of UK geoscientists.
It received its Royal Charter in 1825 for the purpose of investigating the mineral structure of the Earth (the Object of the Society) and is now Britain's national society for geoscience. The running of the Society is governed by a set of Bye-laws that derive from the Charter (The Bye-laws were adopted on May 3 2000 following the work of the Charter and Bye-Laws Working Group). The Society also has a set of regulations, drawn up following the adoption of the byelaws on May 3 2000.
Both a learned society and a professional body, the Geological Society of London is also the UK chartering authority for geoscience, able to award Chartered Geologist status upon appropriately qualified Fellows. Of the Society's 9000+ Fellowship, about 2000 live outside the UK. Fellows are bound by the Society's Code of Conduct.
The Society is located at Burlington House, Piccadilly, which was developed by the government in the 19th Century as a meeting place for the arts and sciences. It shares the courtyard with the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Linnean Society of London.
History
The Society was inaugurated on 13 November 1807 at a dinner at the Freemasons Tavern, Long Acre, Covent Garden. The minutes of the meeting record that there were thirteen founder members. This meeting resolved:
That there be forthwith instituted a Geological Society for the purpose of making geologists acquainted with each other, of stimulating their zeal, of inducing them to adopt one nomenclature, of facilitating the communications of new facts and of ascertaining what is known in their science and what remains to be discovered.
These aims were incorporated in the first constitution of the Society, formally adopted at a meeting on 1 January 1808. Soon after its foundation the Society began to accumulate a library and a collection of minerals, rocks and fossils. These latter were housed in a cabinet presented by Dr William Babington, one of the founder members of the Society. In 1809 the Society moved into rented premises at 4 Garden Court, Temple, and in 1810 to 3 Lincoln's Inn Fields, where it shared larger premises with the Medical and Chirurgical Society.
On 1 June 1810 the Society's first Trustees were appointed and later in the same month, 14 June, the first meeting of the Council took place. The Council resolved that the most important communications made to the Society should be published. Accordingly the first volume of the transactions of the Geological Society was published in 1811.
With the increase in membership and activities of the Society it was found necessary to appoint the first permanent officer in 1812; his duties included care of the Library and the Society's collections, as well as those of draughtsman and secretary to the Council and Committees. The continual growth in the membership and of the collections of maps, sections and mineral specimens necessitated a further move in 1816 to 20 Bedford Street, Covent Garden.
As we have seen, the Society started its existence as a dining club but with the increase in the number of members (341 in 1815; 400 in 1818) this aspect of its activities had fallen into abeyance. It was revived in 1824 with the foundation of the Geological Society Club which continues to hold dinners to the present day. (A history of the Club was written by David Gray in 1995). In 1824 the Council of the Society decided to apply for a Royal Charter.
A draft was prepared and on 23 April 1825 the Charter (exhibited at the foot of the East Stairs) was granted, under the Great Seal, by King George IV to the Rev William Buckland, Arthur Aikin, John Bostock MD, George Bellas Greenough and Henry Warburton, who were nominated as the first Fellows of the Society for the purpose of 'Investigating the Mineral Structure of the Earth' and who were empowered to elect other suitably qualified persons as Fellows of the Society. At the following meeting of the Council the existing 367 members of the Society were appointed as Fellows.
The Society continued to meet at 20 Bedford Street until 1828 when it moved to apartments in Somerset House, Strand, which had recently been rebuilt by the Government for use as public offices and to house the Royal Academy and the Royal Society.
The Geological Society's apartments, including the two rooms of the museum, were fitted out to designs of Decimus Burton, architect of the Temperate House at Kew Gardens, who was a Fellow of the Society. The first meeting at Somerset House was held on 7 November 1828, and the Society remained there until removal to the present apartments at Burlington House in 1874.
The Geological Society
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London W1J 0BG
T. +44 (0)20 7434 9944
F. +44 (0)20 7439 8975
E. enquiries@geolsoc.org.uk
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk
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