Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society

The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit & Phil, is a learned society in Manchester, England.

History

Established in 1781 as the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,^[1] by Thomas Percival, Thomas Barnes and Thomas Henry,^[2] other prominent members have included Robert Owen,^[3] John Dalton, James Prescott Joule, Tom Kilburn, Peter Mark Roget, Ernest Rutherford and Joseph Whitworth.^[4] The first formal meeting of the society took place on 14 March 1781. Meetings were held in a back room of the Cross Street Chapel until December 1799, after which the society moved into its own premises in George Street.^[5] From the outset it was an exclusive organisation, with membership being costly and determined by ballot. Its influence was considerable despite, for example, having only 178 members in 1842. Around that time, the membership included around a dozen people who were also involved with running the Anti-Corn Law League.^[6]

The original "House" (as it was called) was destroyed as a fire-break during the Manchester Blitz in 1940. Its replacement, built in the 1960s, was constructed using high alumina cement (referred to as having "concrete cancer") and was demolished in the 1980s. The Lit & Phil now usually meets in one of three hired lecture theatres: the Royal Northern College of Music, the Manchester Business School, or MANDEC (Manchester Dental Education Centre), all of which are within 200 yards (180 m) of each other. The society operates from an office provided by the Manchester Metropolitan University, and has two permanent staff.

The Lit & Phil offers over 30 lectures or similar events each year, one every week of the academic term. It became a registered charity (No. 235313) in 1964, and is a private members' society (three or four events each year are restricted to members and their guests only), and has more than 450 members. As a charitable institution the society encourages members of the public to attend most of its lectures to improve the further and higher education of those living in Greater Manchester. The most prestigious lecture is the Dalton Lecture, with the most distinguished speakers being presented with Dalton Medal. Since the local universities ceased offering extra-curricular courses the Lit & Phil has seen an increase in both membership and in the attendance of non-members at lectures.

The society's Memoirs and Proceedings, first published in 1783, was at the time of its launch the only regular scientific journal in the United Kingdom except for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[7] The Manchester Memoirs has been published continuously since the first edition. It contains the transactions of the society (most notably the text of many recent lectures) and is distributed to members and to similar institutions and libraries throughout the world by subscription. Copies are also available for purchase by non-members.

Dalton Medal

The Dalton Medal of the Society is a distinction rarely bestowed and is the Society’s highest award. It is given to those who have made a distinguished contribution to science. Since 1898 the medal has only been awarded on 15 occasions. All recipients have been Fellows of the Royal Society and many have been Nobel Prize winners. Several have Manchester and University of Manchester/Owens College connections with the Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Engineering. Only one woman, so far, has been awarded this medal.^[8]

Awardees:

• 1st 1898 Dr Henry Edward Schunck FRS (1820-1903) was an English chemist and expert on natural dyestuffs. He was born in Manchester and lived in Kersal, Salford where he died. He started his studies in Manchester with William Henry. He bequeathed his laboratory to Owens College and it was moved in 1906 to Burlington Street where it is still known as the Schunck Building. The Schunck Library is in the Chemistry Department.
• 2nd 1900 Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe FRS (1833-1915) was an English chemist noted for his work on the element vanadium and for photochemical studies. He was the grandson of the famous William Roscoe of Liverpool, cousin of Stanley Jevons and uncle to Beatrix Potter. Educated at the Liverpool Institute for Boys and with Robert Bunsen in Heidelberg. Appointed 2nd Professor of Chemistry at Owens College, Manchester and held post from 1857 to 1886. MP for Manchester South 1885 to 1895.
• 3rd 1903 Professor Osborne Reynolds FRS (1842-1912) was a British engineer, physicist and educator. He was Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at Owens College, Manchester from 1868 to 1904.
• 4th 1919 Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford OM FRS (1871-1937) was a New Zealand physicist and is consider to be the father of nuclear physics. He was the Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1907-1919 where he split the atom in a building on Coupland Street. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.
• 5th 1931 Sir Joseph J Thomson OM FRS (1856-1940) was an English experimental physicist born in Cheetham Hill in Manchester who enrolled at Owens College in 1870. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906. His son, Professor Sir George Paget Thomson, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937.
• 6th 1942 Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH OBE MC FRS (1890-1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 with his father and became its youngest ever recipient. He was the Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1919 to 1937.
• 7th 1948 Professor Patrick Blackett OM CH FRS (1897-1974) was an English experimental physicist and cosmologist. He was the Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1937 to 1953. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948.
• 8th 1966 Professor Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood OM FRS (1897-1967) was an English physical chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1956.
• 9th 1981 Professor Dorothy Hodgkin OM FRS (1910-1994) was a British biochemist who developed protein crystallography. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.
• 10th 1997 Professor Sir Harold Kroto FRS (1939-2016) was an English chemist famous for his discovery of fullerenes and is most famously associated with buckminsterfullerene C60 (buckyballs). Educated at the University of Sheffield. He was a great promoter of science education, particularly for young people and a huge ambassador for the public engagement of science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996.
• 11th 2002 Sir Walter Fred Bodmer FRS (born 1936) is a German-born British human geneticist who was educated at Manchester Grammar School.
• 12th 2005 Professor Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (born 1931) is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science.
• 13th 2009 Professor Sir Bernard Lovell OBE FRS (1913-2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He established and was the first Director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester.
• 14th 2012 Professor Lord Martin Rees OM FRS FMedSci (born 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. Born in Shropshire he has the title The Lord Rees of Ludlow. He has been the Astronomer Royal since 1995.
• 15th 2016 Professor Sir Konstantin Novoselov FRS FRSC FInstP (born 1974) is a Russian-British physicist, and Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.

See also

• List of societies for education in Manchester
• The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle Upon Tyne

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.

• Scholarly Societies – Man. Lit and Phil
• John Benjamin Dancer
• Manchester Lit and Phil – official website