Among The Public Buildings Of This Ward, That Belonging To The Royal
Society, Situate At The North End Of Two
Crane Court, in Fleet
Street, must not be omitted, though it be much more considerable on
account of the learned
Members who assemble there, and the great
advances that have been made by them of late years in natural
philosophy, &c., than for the elegancy of the building.
During the grand rebellion, when the estates of the prime nobility
and gentry were sequestered, and there was no court for them to
resort to, the then powers encouraging only the maddest enthusiast,
or the basest of the people, whom they looked upon as the fittest
instruments to support their tyranny; some ingenious gentlemen, who
had applied themselves chiefly to their studies, and abhorred the
usurpation, proposed the erecting a society for the improvement of
natural knowledge, which might be an innocent and inoffensive
exercise to themselves in those troublesome times, and of lasting
benefit to the nation. Their first meeting, it is said, were at the
chambers of Mr. Wilkins (afterwards Bishop of Chester) in Wadham
College, in Oxford, about the year 1650, and the members consisted
of the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq., Dr. Ward (afterwards Bishop of
Salisbury), Sir Christopher Wren, Sir William Petty, Dr. Wallis, Dr.
Goddard, and Dr. Hook (late Professor of Geometry), the above-named
Bishop Wilkins, and others. In the year 1658 we find them
assembling in Gresham College, in London, when were added to their
number the Lord Brounker (their first president), Sir Robert Murray,
John Evelyng, Esq., Sir George Ent, Dr. Croon, Henry Shingsby, Esq.,
and many others.
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