THE FIRST MEETINGS AT GRESHAM COLLEGE 7 



which with the tw6 rooms adjoining is about 90 feet long and 

 12 or 13 broad. Besides these rooms within, they have the use 

 of a fair colonnade under the gallery and of a spacious area about 

 140 feet long and 197 feet broad ' l (Plates I and II). 



The entry of Monk with his army into London at the beginning 

 of February, 1660, brought the reign of terror in the country to 

 a close, and after the return of Charles II, towards the end of 

 May, life in the capital began to move again mainly on the old 

 lines. The meetings of the philosophers at Gresham College 

 were revived. The desirability of more formal organization 

 among the cultivators of science was soon recognized, and accord- 

 ingly on the 28th of November, 1660, the following memorandum 

 was drawn up : 



' These persons following, according to the usuall custom of 

 most of them, mett together at Gresham Colledge to heare 

 Mr. Wren's lecture, viz. The Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, 

 Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr. Wilkins, 

 Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, 

 Mr. Hill. And after the lecture was ended, they did, according 

 to the usual manner, withdrawe for mutuall converse. Where 

 amongst other matters that were discoursed of, something was 

 offered about a designe of founding a Colledge for the promoting 

 of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning. 2 And because 

 they had these frequent occasions of meeting with one another, it 

 was proposed that some course might be thought of, to improve 

 this meeting to a more regular way of debating things, and 

 according to the manner in other countryes, where there were 

 voluntary associations of men in academies, for the advancement 



1 From a pamphlet in the British Museum, entitled ' An Account of the Proceedings 

 of the Council of the Royal Society in order to remove from Gresham College', quoted 

 by Weld, ' History of Royal Society,' vol. i, p. 82. Gresham College was founded by 

 Sir Thomas Gresham, a wealthy merchant of London, who died in 1579. To carry out his 

 design he left a portion of his estate in trust to the City and the Mercers' Company, 

 directing that his town house in Bishopsgate Street should be fitted up as a College for 

 the accommodation of seven professors, who were severally to give lectures on divinity, 

 astronomy, music, geometry, civil law, physic, and rhetoric. The institution grew to be 

 an important intellectual centre in the City of London, and with its lecture-rooms and 

 professorial staff formed an appropriate home for Boyle's ' invisible College ' and the 

 more conspicuous body which eventually took shape as the Royal Society under the aegis 

 of Charles II. 



2 This may perhaps have been Cowley's ' Proposition ' referred to below. 



