278 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xviii 



Joseph Dalton Hooker, F.R.S., K.C.S.I., Pres. R.S. 

 1873, the great botanist, then Assistant Director at Kew 

 Gardens to his father, Sir WilHam Hooker. 



Sir John Lubbock, Bart, F.R.S., M.P., the youngest 

 of the nine, who had already made his mark in archaeology, 

 and was then preparing to bring out his Prehistoric Times. 



Herbert Spencer, who had already published Social 

 Statistics, Principles of Psychology, and First Principles. 



William Spottiswoode (1825-1883), F.R.S., Treasurer 

 and afterwards President R.S. 1878, who carried on the 

 business of the Queen's printer as well as being deeply 

 versed in mathematics, philosophy, and languages. 



John Tyndall, F.R.S. (1820-1893), who had been for the 

 last eleven years Professor of Natural Philosophy at the 

 Royal Institution, where he succeeded Faraday as super- 

 intendent. 



The one object, then, of the club was to afiford a certain 

 meeting-ground for a few friends who were bound together 

 by personal regard and community of scientific interests, yet 

 were in danger of drifting apart under the stress of circum- 

 stances. They dined together on the first Thursday in each 

 month, except July, August, and September, before the 

 meeting of the Royal Society, of which all were members 

 excepting Mr. Spencer, the usual dining hour being six, so 

 that they should be in good time for the society's meeting at 

 eight; and a minute of December 5, 1885, when Huxley 

 was treasurer and revived the ancient custom of making 

 some note of the conversation, throws light on the habits 

 of the club. " Got scolded," he writes, " for dining at 6.30. 

 Had to prove we have dined at 6.30 for a long time by 

 evidence of waiter. (At the February meeting, however, 

 " agreed to fix dinner hour six hereafter.") Talked politics, 



scandal, and the three classes of witnesses — Hars, d d 



liars, and experts. Huxley gave account of civil list pen- 

 sion. Sat to the unexampled hour of 10 p.m., except Lub- 

 bock who had to go to Linnsean." 



of Naval Studies at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich ; an old Mar- 

 burg student, and intimate friend of Tyndall, whom he had succeeded 

 at Queenwood College in 1853. He died in 1892. 



