310 A HISTORY OF 



Council submitted the proposed new by-laws to the 

 Society for approval. They included provision for 

 the election of a class of honorary officers to be called 

 Fellows, and provided that the first Fellows should be 

 those already Fellows of the Royal Society. This 

 proposal was not favourably received, and the Council 

 was obliged to withdraw it. Professor FitzGerald 

 thereupon resigned the office of honorary secretary. 

 In his letter of resignation he described the rejected 

 by-laws as " the only serious attempt that has been 

 proposed to encourage scientific members to work for 

 the Society." A few weeks later a code of by-laws, 

 with the provision relating to Fellows omitted, was 

 submitted to the Society and approved. In recent 

 years a few amendments have been made from time to 

 time, as experience suggested. 



In 1892, on petition of the Society, the statutes 

 were amended by royal warrant. In their original 

 form the statutes provided that the number of the 

 whole Council, exclusive of the president, should not 

 exceed forty-five. The amendment limited the 

 number of elected members to a maximum of thirty- 

 six, and did not place any limit to the number of the 

 whole Council. The other members of the Council 

 are the honorary officers as ex officio members. The 

 Society has the power by by-law to include any 

 number of ex officio members in the Council, and to 

 determine their titles, tenure, duties and mode of 

 election. 



While the protracted negotiations concerning the 

 issue of the new charter were in progress, some changes 

 of far-reaching importance were made in the by-laws. 

 On the 30th of June, 1887, the Society decided that 

 members might be either men or women, and that 

 "he" in the by-laws should be interpreted as either 



