46 A HISTORY OF 



of March 1752, is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. 

 Lord Southwell was its first president, and the member- 

 ship included James Ware, Thomas Prior, Walter 

 Harris, The Bishops of Dromore, Cork, and Clonfert, 

 Dr. John Rutty, Dr. John Lyon, 1 James Simon, 2 Lord 

 Strangford, and Richard Pococke, most of whom were 

 members of the Dublin Society. In 1747, the Lord 

 Chancellor (Robert Jocelyn, lord Newport) was 

 elected president, and in the following year Martin 

 Folkes, president of the Royal Society, became a 

 member. The first business was to collect materials 

 for a History of the City and of the County of Dublin, 

 and Walter Harris undertook the former. Dr. Samuel 

 Madden offered ^10 towards paying itinerant persons 

 to travel and collect observations on the various counties. 

 The Histories of Fermanagh and Monaghan were 

 offered to Madden, and the Rev. Philip Skelton. Dr. 

 Charles Smith undertook Waterford, and Dr. Rutty, 

 Dublin county. James Simon's ^Account of Irish Coins, 

 as also Smith's Cork, were published under the auspices 

 of the Society; and in 1752, Smith was engaged on 

 his History of Kerry for the same Society. On the 14th 

 of February 1754, a note appears in the minutes of the 

 Dublin Society that Smith's Kerry was to be read by 

 a committee, with a view to its publication by the 

 Society, under whose auspices the work subsequently 

 appeared. 



At the election of officers held on the 14th of 

 November 1745, Philip Stanhope, earl of Chesterfield, 



1 He had charge of Swift in his last illness, and was a witness to 

 the Dean's will. Lyon was librarian of Trinity College, Dublin, and 

 compiled a catalogue of the MSS. He was also secretary to Swift's 

 Hospital. 



2 For a short time, in 1748, he acted as secretary. Between 175 1 

 and 1756 he appears to have been secretary to the Incorporated 

 Society. James Simon was a wine merchant in Fleet street, and is 

 well known as author of the valuable work on Irish Coins. 



