November 28, 1660

Royal Society

The founding meeting of the future Royal Society

Before leaving, the twelve had already drawn up a list of forty-one more people they might recruit.

28 November 1660, after an astronomy lecture

After Christopher Wren's astronomy lecture at Gresham College in London on 28 November 1660, twelve men gathered in Lawrence Rooke's rooms for what the Royal Society records as its first meeting. They discussed founding a college devoted to physico-mathematical experimental learning and promoting experimental philosophy through regular debate and investigation.

The twelve were William Brouncker, Robert Boyle, Alexander Bruce, Robert Moray, Paul Neile, John Wilkins, Jonathan Goddard, William Petty, William Ball, Rooke, Wren, and Abraham Hill.

Officers, a schedule, a subscription

They agreed to meet weekly on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. — in Rooke's Gresham College chambers during term and William Ball's Temple chambers during vacations.

John Wilkins took the chair, Ball became treasurer, and the absent William Croone was made register. Financing was to come from a ten-shilling admission payment and a shilling a week, and the meeting produced a list of forty-one possible additional members.

Not yet the Royal Society

The group was organized but neither chartered nor legally incorporated. A week later a larger gathering met and Robert Moray reported that Charles II knew of and approved the design.

The first charter followed on 15 July 1662; the second, of 22 April 1663, established the enduring corporate name.

The date itself is Old Style — 28 November 1660 corresponds to 8 December in the Gregorian calendar.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The date is secure in the Society’s Journal Book and is treated by the Royal Society as its foundation date.
England still used the Julian calendar; 28 November 1660 Old Style corresponds to 8 December Gregorian.
Calling this the birth of the “Royal Society” is retrospective. On the day, the group used a provisional description and had neither its eventual name nor a royal charter.
The relationship between earlier London, Oxford and “Invisible College” circles and the 1660 body is historically complex; they should not be collapsed into one continuously organized institution.