LEICESTER LITERARY SOCIETY. 



299 



A SKETCH OF THE HISTOEY OF THE 

 LEICESTER LITEEAEY & PHHiOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



T. MOTT, F.R.G.S. 



In the year 1835 two young men of Leicester, a physician and a 

 lawyer, met at an evening party and discussed with unusual earnestness 

 the condition and prospects of the town. It was a period of great 

 pohtical excitement ; party passions separated friends and made general 

 intercourse difficult. The question arose as to how this condition of 

 things could be amehorated. The young physician had recently been 

 studying in Manchester, and described to his fi-iend an institution of 

 which he had been a member there, and which struck him as a useful 

 means of bringing cultivated men together on a neutral platform This 

 was the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The lawyer 

 listening to the physician's Uvely description of the beneficial action of 

 that society, became inspired with a strong ambition to establish a 

 similar institution in his own town. His friend entered warmly into the 

 scheme, and they began at once to discuss preliminaries. It happened 

 that in poHtics and theology they were diametrically opposed, but as the 

 new Society was to ignore these irritating topics this was rather an 

 advantage than otherwise. 



It was agreed that each should invite half a dozen of his personal 

 friends to a preliminary meeting to be held at the Medical Library in the 

 month of June. At this meeting the Leicester Literary and Philosophical 

 Society was estabhshed. Thirteen gentlemen were present, of whom six 

 are still hving ; and among those six are the two founders of the Society 

 — ^Dr. Shaw and Mr. Alfi-ed Paget. 



Dr. Shaw was elected its first President, and Mr. Paget its first 

 Honorary Secretary. A room was engaged, a code of rules di-awn up, 

 and the first meeting of the Society was held on the 7th of S sptember, 

 183-5, when the President delivered an admu'able opening address on the 

 " Influence of Science upon the Happiness of Mankind." 



At that time the population of the town was about 45,000, and the 

 Society started with sixty members subscribing one guinea a year each. 



The population is now about 120,000, and the members of the Society 

 about 300. 



For the first threeyears ladies were not admitted, and the attendance 

 at the meetings, which were held monthly at half-past seven in the 

 evening, varied from about ten to thirty. 



During these three years many excellent papers were read before the 

 Society, but occasionally a meeting was adjourned for want of an 

 audience. The proposal to admit ladies was warmly debated at four 

 successive meetings, and was at last carried. 



At the meetiag on October the IBth, 1838, each member was allowed 

 to introduce one lady, and the advertisements and circulars of the 

 succeeding session bore the words " ladies invited." At the same time 

 the meetings began to be held fortnightly instead of monthly. 



