Former homes of the Royal Society

Abstract

From the date of the first official record of the Royal Society—the memorandum of foundation of 28 November 1660, the Society has had six different homes. From 1660-1710 it was housed in Gresham College with temporary accommodation during this period (1665-1666, 1667-1673) in Arundel House. From 1710-1780 the Society’s home was in Crane Court, off Fleet Street, from 1780-1857 in Somerset House, from 1857-1967 in Burlington House, in 1873 moving into a new wing built to meet the then requirements of the Society and the other learned Societies now accommodated there. Since the move from Gresham College, each successive move has been motivated by the need for more space in which the Society could operate effectively. Until now perhaps only once, i.e. in 1873, when the Society moved into the new wing of Burlington House, was its new accommodation sufficient for its current needs and already in 1900 representations were being made that the Society’s accommodation was too restricted. Sixty-seven years and the endeavours of successive Presidents and Councils have elapsed before the situation was alleviated by the move to its new quarters in Carlton House Terrace. Excellent accounts of the negotiations for increased accommodation for the Society have been given in Presidential Addresses to the Society notably in recent times by Sir Henry Dale (1943), Sir Robert Robinson (1950), and Lord Florey (1963), and by my predecessor, Mr J. D. Griffith Davies, in Notes and Records (1946). In this account, therefore, I shall restrict myself mainly to brief descriptions of the Society’s former homes.