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Business Papers

This section of the Archives comprise the Society's own official records maintained since the Society was founded in 1807.

A Handlist is available listing the content of the files.

Official Papers

  • Council Minutes: from 1810 to the present.
  • Rules and regulations of the Society
  • Papers relating to the Charter of Incorporation, 1825.
  • Committee minutes, 1820s to the present (incomplete).
  • ‘Ordinary’ and ‘Special’ Meeting minutes and papers from 1807 onwards. The volumes up to 1826 are particularly important, as there is no printed record of these meetings.  A digital copy of the first minute book has been made to preserve the original and make it more readily available to researchers visiting the Library.
  • Drawings submitted by members for display at meetings.
  • Attendance registers. There are no attendance records for early meetings. The minute books list only visitors (non-members) and their sponsors, but do not list Fellows present. Signing in books are only preserved for the years 1899 to 1922.

Early Publications

  • Documentation relating to the Society’s early publications e.g. accounts, dealings with publishers of its nineteenth century journals. The Transactions (1811-1856) and Quarterly Journal, more recently just the Journal, are available online as part of the Lyell Collection.
  • Manuscripts of published papers (few survive).
  • Drawings and paintings submitted for publication, ranging in date from 1811 to about 1880, with most between 1850 to 1865.

Fellowship

  • Proposal Forms – These are held from 1825 (member No. 195) and give the candidate's full name and address, the signatures of sponsors and date of election. Nominations for Foreign Members are also included.
  • Fellows' Photographs – Between c 1870 and 1900, fellows were invited to submit a portrait photograph for the Society's records.  For further information please read the Portraits and Images page.
  • Membership lists – From 1808 –2001 membership lists were published periodically and the ‘working’/annotated copies are held in the Archive.

Correspondence

  • Only a small proportion has survived, now bound into 19 volumes of the Secretaries' in-letters 1834-1880 (partial index), and 34 volumes of flimsies of Secretaries' out-letters 1895-1955. Most concern routine business matters rather than geological/scientific matters. (NB: many of these volumes are in bad physical condition, and cannot therefore be consulted).
  • Handlists of some of these volumes are available and a card index to these is held by the Society.

The Museum

  • Founded 1808, but in 1911 the collection was divided between the British Museum (Natural History) and the Geological Survey and Museum. See: Thackray, John (1991) A short history of the Museum of the Geological Society of London, 1807-1911, with a catalogue of the British and Irish accessions, and notes on surviving collections. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Historical series; 19(1), p.51-160.
  • The registers and numerous catalogues of individual collections are held in the Palaeontology Library of the British Museum (Natural History). The principal relevant items in the Archives are two volumes of letters and lists relating to British and Irish specimens, 1808-1845, and papers connected with Leonard Horner's work on the museum during his presidency, 1858-1860.

The Library

  • Accessions registers and catalogues. (NB: many of these volumes are in bad physical condition, and cannot therefore be consulted).

The Geological Society Club

  • Founded in 1824 as a ‘Dinner Club’ by thirty members of the Society, its records are deposited in the Archive. For an overview of the collection, see: GRAY, D.A. A review of the archives of the Geological Society Club: from the founding in 1824 to the sesquicentennial in 1974. Geological Society Club, 1975.