1750 Annual General Meeting 37 



St. Andrew's Day, 3Oth November, happened this year 

 on a Thursday. The Royal Philosophers accordingly held 

 no dinner of their own that day, but left the members of 

 their fraternity free to attend the anniversary dinner of 

 the Royal Society, which, as usual, took place at Pontac's 

 famous hostelry. This custom of pretermitting the Club's 

 dinner when the anniversary of the Royal Society happens 

 on a Thursday has been continued ever since and is faith- 

 fully observed still. 



1750. The Annual General Meeting in 1750 was held on 

 July 26th, when there were present : 



Martin Folkes, President. 



Rev. Thomas Birch. Dr. William Heberden. 



George Graham. Peter Davall. 



Jonathan Richardson. William Watson. 



Daniel Wray. Peter Newcome. 



William Fauquier. William Hall. 



James Burrow. John Ellicott. 



Dr. Gowin Knight. George Bell. 



Charles Stanhope. James Postlethwaite. 



Josiah Colebrooke, Treasurer. 



The Treasurer made his financial statement, which showed 

 that his disbursements had amounted to only fourteen 

 shillings, leaving in his hands a balance of fjj 145. 5d. From 

 his weekly register it appears that 933 persons had dined 

 at the Club during the year, consisting of 738 members 

 and 195 visitors. 1 The list of the members was read, and 

 there being only one vacancy but seven candidates, it was 

 agreed to have no election until next year. 



1 Josiah Colebrooke and his immediate successors, though they furnished 

 at each Annual General Meeting an account of their receipts and expenditure, 

 did not include also a statement of the number of persons who had dined 

 at the Club during the year, and of the relative number of members and 

 guests. This information can with some little trouble be obtained by 

 a careful scrutiny of the dinner-registers. I have compiled it for every 

 fifth year beginning with 1750. As the list of those present at these 

 anniversary Meetings varies but little from year to year, to save space it is 

 inserted only every fifth year. The gradual change in the membership of 

 the Club will thus be more distinctly perceptible. It will be observed 

 that the Club dined as a rule every Thursday throughout the year, and 

 continued to do so during the rest of the century. 



