The Animal Chemistry Club; assistant society to the Royal Society
Towards the end of the eighteenth century it was becoming increasingly clear that the Royal Society alone was inadequate to provide the facilities needed for the detailed discussion of all the specialized branches of science. Groups of Fellows with common interests began to meet privately in order to discuss their problems and consider ways in which their particular branch might be studied and improved. In days when numerous coffee and dinner clubs were springing up, it was an easy matter to persuade a circle of friends and colleagues to join in following the fashionable trend. Thus a common interest might be furthered in a congenial atmosphere (i). Already in 1788, the Linnean Society had been formed with the aim of improving the study of Natural History (2). Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, intent upon measures which would raise the status of the Fellowship, looked with disfavour on anything which appeared likely to undermine the standing of the Royal Society. Nevertheless, he lent strong support to the Linnean Society in its early days (3), allowing its members full use of his extensive personal collection of specimens, so that by 1790 the new Society was well established (4). But by developing independently of the Royal Society, the Linnean Society became its rival in the field of Natural History. This was a blow to the monolithic structure of the parent body and Banks became more wary of the possible effects which might follow the formation of other such specialized groups, though he gave his qualified support to the Horticultural Society, established in 1804 and later to the Geological Society, set up in 1807 (5).