The Thursday’s Club called the Club of the Royal Philosophers, and its relation to the Royal Society Club

Abstract

As far as I have been able to ascertain the Royal Society Club appears to be the oldest dining club in Europe. We know it has been in continuous existence since 1743, dining for many years every Thursday before the Royal Society met, and in more recent years dining after the meeting. The weekly registers have been kept almost unfailingly—though some have been lost— recording the names of members dining and their guests, what they ate and what they paid. The President of the Royal Society has been President of the Club and for a long time the Secretaries and the Astronomer Royal have automatically been members. With a few exceptions in the earliest years, all members have been Fellows. And yet the Club has not always been called the Royal Society Club, and we have never known why, or exactly when, the original name ‘The Club of the Royal Philosophers’ was replaced by the shorter name, for there is no record of the change to be found in the Minutes of the Annual General Meetings held in the summer. The Club might have been in existence long before 1743; there is written evidence that it was in existence in 1736 and a more casual reference that it began about 1731, but we do not encounter the full title until the first recorded A.G.M. of 1749. The first Treasurer, Josiah Colebrook, does not repeat the title, there was indeed no reason why he should have done so for the Minutes were never published; but the full title is found in several places up to January 1784.