The Royal Society of Edinburgh

The 1731 Lineage

The Society is older than its charter, in the way institutions usually are. The chain begins with the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge — the Medical Society of Edinburgh — founded in 1731 and co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin. Maclaurin found its purely medical focus too narrow, worked to broaden it, and in 1737 a wider body split off: the Edinburgh Society for Improving Arts and Sciences and particularly Natural Knowledge, renamed the Edinburgh Philosophical Society in 1738. That is the RSE’s direct corporate ancestor. The specialist medical remainder went on to become the Royal Medical Society.

One frequently repeated shortcut should be resisted. The Edinburgh Society for Encouraging Arts, Sciences, Manufactures and Agriculture, founded in 1754 or 1755 as an offshoot of the Select Society of David Hume, Adam Smith and Allan Ramsay, is sometimes described as merging into the RSE alongside the Philosophical Society. It was a distinct improvement and economic body, and the documented transfer was the Philosophical Society’s alone. Calling the RSE the product of a two-society merger is an oversimplification.

Who Was Actually First President

Because Robertson did the work of founding, he is often given the office as well. He did not hold it. The charter names Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch (1746–1812) as the RSE’s first President, and he served until his death in 1812. Robertson was President of the Literary Class from 1789 to 1793, and he, William Cullen and Alexander Monro secundus were the three men instrumental in obtaining the charter itself. The distinction matters because it is exactly the kind of tidy-sounding claim that gets copied from card to card until nobody checks the charter.

Two Classes, One Academy

From the beginning the Society was not a scientific body with literature attached. It was organised into a Physical Class and a Literary Class, and a Fellow was elected to one of them. Until 1828 there were two Presidents and two Secretaries, one per class; from that year a single President, and the classes themselves merged four years later. Through the nineteenth century the RSE drifted to become almost exclusively scientific in practice, and only later recovered the balance its constitution had always assumed.

That breadth is what separates the RSE from the specialised royal colleges of physicians and surgeons and from the universities. It also makes it institutionally unusual in Britain, which is a claim worth stating carefully.

The Uniqueness Claim, Narrowed

The RSE describes its multidisciplinary breadth as unique among the UK national academies, and that is accurate. In the rest of the UK the work is divided: the Royal Society (1660) for the sciences, the British Academy (1902) for humanities and social sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering (1976) for engineering, and the Academy of Medical Sciences alongside them.

Nor is the RSE a branch of anything. It and the Royal Society of London are separate and independent, with no parent relationship in either direction, though there has been solidarity: in 1906 the London society backed the RSE’s campaign to secure a new home, Lord Kelvin describing it as “the mother of scientific societies”.

Fellows, and Two Corrections

James Hutton (1726–1797) was a founding Fellow, sat on the first Council and co-led the Physical Class with Joseph Black. His Theory of the Earth was read to the Society in two parts — the first by Black on 7 March 1785 because Hutton was ill, the second by Hutton himself on 4 April — and printed in Transactions Volume I in 1788. Adam Smith was a founding Fellow too, by virtue of his Philosophical Society membership; his literary executors were Black and Hutton, both RSE men.

Sir Walter Scott was President from 1820 to 1832, the third holder of the office and the only literary President in the Society’s history. James Clerk Maxwellread his first paper, “On the description of oval curves, and those having a plurality of foci”, to the RSE on 6 April 1846 at the age of fourteen — presented on his behalf by Professor James Forbes, since he was judged too young to read it himself. He gave two further papers to the Transactions as an Edinburgh student. Later Fellows and office-holders include Sir David Brewster, Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (fourth President, and the namesake of Brisbane in Australia), Lord Kelvin, President three times, John Playfair, Dugald Stewart, Sir James Hall, P.G. Tait, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, and in modern times Peter Higgs and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Two attributions have to be struck out. Charles Darwin had no RSE connection: the first scientific observations of his Edinburgh student years were given to the Plinian Society, a student natural-history club, on 27 March 1827. And the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship dated 1868 that circulates under the name Bell belongs to Alexander Melville Bell, the father. Alexander Graham Bell’s Edinburgh honours were the Freedom of the City in 1920 and an honorary degree in 1906; his society memberships were largely American, along with the Royal Society of London’s Hughes Medal in 1913.

Transactions Since 1788

The Society’s most concrete achievement is not a discovery but a publishing record. Volume I of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh appeared in 1788, carrying the first full printing of Hutton’s Theory of the Earth at pages 209 to 304. The Proceedings followed in 1844, splitting in 1940 into Section A for the mathematical and physical sciences and Section B for biology. Publication has been continuous for more than two hundred and thirty years, and since 2019 the journals have been published with Cambridge University Press.

To that add the medals and prizes: the Keith Medal from 1827, the Makdougall Brisbane Prize from 1855, the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize from 1887, and the Royal Medals instituted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. And, in the modern era, the Enterprise Fellowships founded in 1997, which have supported over 272 graduates and researchers; a BiGGAR Economics evaluation for the RSE in 2019 found that more than 81 per cent of businesses created by Enterprise Fellows were still trading beyond five years, against roughly 45 per cent for typical start-ups, contributing almost £170 million to annual global gross value added, including £77 million in Scotland, and supporting more than 3,000 jobs.

1949: The Five

For one hundred and sixty-six years the Fellowship was closed to women. That ended in 1949, when five were elected together: the geneticist Charlotte Auerbach, the geologist and palaeontologist Ethel Currie, the marine biologist Sheina Marshall, the chemist Christina Cruickshank Miller and the protozoologist Doris Mackinnon. Their election also abolished the exclusionary nomination process that had kept the door shut.

The comparison is not flattering. The Royal Society of London elected Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson on 22 March 1945, after a postal vote to amend its statutes — four years ahead of Edinburgh. The RSE’s first female President, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, was announced in February 2014 and took office that October, 231 years after the charter.

The Modern Society

The RSE now has a Fellowship of approximately 1,800 — about 1,400 as recently as 2006 — organised into four broad divisions covering the physical and life sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, and the professions, business and public life. Its rules allow up to 40 Ordinary Fellows and seven International Fellows a year, and recent intakes have varied: 87 in 2021, 80 in 2022, 91 in 2023, 57 in 2024, 43 in 2026. It awards Personal Research Fellowships, Enterprise Fellowships and small research grants, gives independent policy advice to Scottish and UK policymakers, runs public events and international partnerships, and founded the Young Academy of Scotland in 2011. It is a Scottish charity, SC000470, part-supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Its home is 22–24 George Street in the New Town, inside Edinburgh’s UNESCO World Heritage Site — a building put up in 1843 for the Edinburgh Life Assurance Company by William Burn and David Bryce, which also housed the Edinburgh Subscription Library. The Society moved in in 1909, having been required to leave its rooms in the Royal Institution on The Mound under the National Galleries of Scotland Act 1906; the £25,000 purchase was helped by a Treasury grant won through a campaign led by the General Secretary George Chrystal and the President, Lord Kelvin. Before that it had lodged in the University Library from 1783, Physicians’ Hall from 1807, 40–42 George Street from 1810 and the Royal Institution from 1826.

Timeline

1. 1731

   Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge founded

   Co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin

2. 1737

   A broader society splits off

   Maclaurin wanted more than medicine; the medical remainder became the Royal Medical Society

3. 1738

   Renamed the Edinburgh Philosophical Society

   The RSE's direct corporate ancestor

4. 1782

   The Antiquaries seek a royal charter

   The University and Faculty of Advocates fear a rival

5. Nov 1782

   Petition presented to the King

   John Walker proposes a counter-scheme; Robertson champions it

6. 29 Mar 1783

   George III signs the royal charter

   “For the promotion of letters and useful knowledge”

7. 6 May 1783

   The charter passes the Great Seal in Edinburgh

   Buccleuch named President

8. 23 Jun 1783

   First meeting, Old Library

   179 founding Fellows, Hutton and Adam Smith among them

9. 1785

   Hutton's Theory of the Earth read to the Society

   Black reads part one on 7 March; Hutton part two on 4 April

10. 1788

    Transactions, Volume I

    Includes the first full printing of Hutton's Theory of the Earth

11. 1820–1832

    Sir Walter Scott is President

    The only literary President in the Society's history

12. 1827

    The Keith Medal founded

    Followed by Makdougall Brisbane 1855 and Gunning Victoria Jubilee 1887

13. 1828–1832

    One President replaces two; the classes merge

    The Physical and Literary split is abolished

14. 6 Apr 1846

    Maxwell's first paper is read

    Aged 14, and presented for him by Professor James Forbes

15. 1844

    Proceedings begins

    Splitting into Sections A and B in 1940

16. 1909

    The Society moves to 22–24 George Street

    After being required to vacate the Royal Institution

17. 1949

    The first five women Fellows elected

    Auerbach, Currie, Marshall, Miller and Mackinnon

18. 1997

    Enterprise Fellowships established

    Over 272 graduates and researchers supported

19. 2011

    The Young Academy of Scotland is founded

    An RSE initiative

20. Oct 2014

    Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell takes office

    The RSE's first female President

Did You Know?

• The Society opened with 179 Fellows because every member of the Philosophical Society became one automatically.
• Until 1828 the RSE had two Presidents at once — one for the sciences, one for letters.
• Maxwell's first paper was read to the Society when he was fourteen, by a professor, because he was thought too young to read it himself.
• Hutton missed the first reading of his own Theory of the Earth in 1785 because he was ill; Joseph Black read it for him.
• Sir Walter Scott is the only literary figure ever to have been President.
• Lord Kelvin held the presidency three times.
• The fourth President, Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, gave his name to the Australian city.
• The Society's George Street home was built in 1843 as an insurance office and once held a subscription library.

Honest Caveats

Robertson was not the first President. The charter names the Duke of Buccleuch; Robertson led the Literary Class.

All-disciplinary is a UK distinction only. Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands, Austria, Russia and the United States all have comparably broad academies.

The Society’s achievements are institutional. Hutton’s geology and Maxwell’s physics belong to Hutton and Maxwell; what belongs to the RSE is having been the room they were read in and the press that printed them.

The 1731 to 1738 lineage varies in detail between the RSE’s own pages and secondary sources, though the sequence is reliable. The claim of a merger with the 1754 Edinburgh Society is an oversimplification.

Minor discrepancies exist on the headquarters. The address appears as both 22–24 and 22–26 George Street; 1909 is the best-supported move-in year, and an occasional “1924” comes only from unreliable machine-generated sources.

The Bell Fellowship is provisional. On present evidence the 1868 election was Alexander Melville Bell’s. If the Biographical Index of Former Fellows 1783–2002 or the RSE archives show a Fellowship for Alexander Graham Bell, this should be revised.