i864 THE X CLUB 277 



Hooker gladly embraced a proposal of Huxley's to organise 

 some kind of regular meeting, a proposal which bore fruit 

 in the establishment of the x Club. On November 3, 1864, 

 the first meeting was held at St. George's Hotel, Albe- 

 marle Street, where they resolved to dine regularly " except 

 when Benham cannot have us, in which case dine at the 

 Athenffium." In the latter eighties, however, the Athenaeum 

 became the regular place of meeting, and it was here that 

 the " coming of age " of the club was celebrated in 1885. 



Eight members met at the first meeting; the second 

 meeting brought their numbers up to nine by the addition 

 of W. Spottiswoode, but the proposal to elect a tenth mem- 

 ber was never carried out. On the principle of lucus a non 

 liicendo, this lent an additional appropriateness to the sym- 

 bol X, the origin of which Huxley thus describes in his 

 reminiscences of Tyndall in the Nineteenth Century for Janu- 

 ary 1894 : — 



At starting, our minds were terribly exercised over the name 

 and constitution of our society. As opinions on this grave 

 matter were no less numerous than the members — indeed more 

 so — we finally accepted the happy suggestion of our mathema- 

 ticians to call it the x Club ; and the proposal of some genius 

 among us, that we should have no rules, save the unwritten law 

 not to have any, was carried by acclamation. 



Besides Huxley, the members of the club were as fol- 

 lows : — 



George Busk, F.R.S. (1807-87), then secretary of the 

 Linnean Society, a skilful anatomist.* 



Edward Frankland (1825-1899), For. Sec. R.S., K.C.B., 

 then Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution, and 

 afterwards at the Royal College of Science. 



Thomas Archer Hirst, F.R.S. , then mathematical master 

 at University College School, f 



* He served as surgeon to the hospital ship Dreadnought at Green- 

 wich till 1856, when he resigned, and, retiring from practice, devoted 

 himself to scientific pursuits, and was elected President of the College 

 of Surgeons in 1871. 



+ In 1865 appointed Professor of Physics ; in 1867, of Pure Mathe- 

 matics, at University College, London ; and from 1873 to 1883 Director 



