CHAPTER II 



PRESIDENTSHIP OF MARTIN FOLKES, 1747-1752 



ON entering upon the detailed history of the Club we dis- 

 cover that no record has survived of the meetings and 

 dinners which were held during the four years that followed 

 the meeting on October 27th 1743. That these dinners took 

 place, however, is shown by the first entry, in the first 

 weekly register, which states that on March 24th 1747 (O.S.) 

 there was in the Treasurer's hands a balance of 5 153. 5d. 

 On that day the earliest recorded dinner was held, and 

 thenceforward the chronicle was kept week by week with 

 scrupulous fidelity by the same Treasurer during the long 

 space of nearly thirty-one years. Here at the outset let 

 me say that to the memory of this first Treasurer, Josiah 

 Colebrooke, the Royal Society Club owes a debt of cordial 

 appreciation for the unflagging zeal and tact with which 

 he piloted the Club through the dangers of its infancy, 

 until he saw it firmly established in the mature vigour which 

 has enabled it to maintain itself in healthy activity through 

 fully a century and a half since he passed away. We 

 cannot begin the review of our past history more appro- 

 priately than by devoting a few pages to the memory of 

 one to whom the Club is so much indebted. 



For some twelve years Colebrooke conducted the business 

 of the Club before he himself belonged to the Royal Society. 

 It was not until I3th March 1755 that he was elected a 

 Fellow. His certificate of qualifications, preserved among 

 the archives of the Society, records the opinion of his 



