scertained: the question turns on the
meaning of the words "founder" and "foundation." The first meetings of
the Philosophical Club, which became the Royal Society, were
unquestionably held in London, and were continued there, at the Bull's
Head Tavern in Cheapside, after Wilkins had removed to Oxford in 1648,
and gathered round him there the members of a new philosophical society,
which may be called, if that name be preferred, an offshoot from the
parent stem: the two clubs co-existed till the Restoration, when most of
the Oxford philosophers migrated or returned to London, and were
incorporated into one society which received its name and charter from
Charles II. in July 1662.

Metaphors do not always illustrate, but the facts may be stated thus:
the Royal Society was born in London or cradled there; the infant did
not thrive, and was put out to nurse at Oxford where it waxed and
prospered: it was a proper child of three years old when (on Petty's
leaving Oxford in 1651) it found a settled home in the Warden's lodgings
in Wadham for eight years; grown and strengthened, the boy was brought
back to his birthplace, and was recognised and named. In this sense it
may be said that the Royal Society was founded by Wilkins in Wadham:
that College was its early home, and Wilkins was the most prominent and
active man in the Philosophical Club.

A very clear and short account of many of its members is given in the
'History of the Oxford Museum,' by Dr Vernon and Miss Vernon, which, if
I may presume to praise it, resembles the work of Oughtred before
mentioned, as being "a little book, but a great one as to the contents."
Sprat enumerates as "the principal and most constant of those who met at
Wadham, Dr Seth Ward, Mr Boyle, Dr Wilkins, Sir William Petty, Dr
Wallis, Dr Goddard, Dr Willis, Dr Bathurst, Mr Matthew Wren, Dr
Christopher Wren, Mr Rooke, besides several others, who joyn'd
themselves to them, upon occasion." The list is remarkable; it
represents the science of the time,--Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry,
Physics, Engineering, Architecture, Theology, and Political Economy or
Arithmetic, for nothing "scibile" was alien to these inquisitive
persons. "Their proceedings," we are told, "were rather by action than
discourse, chiefly attending some particular Trials in Chymistry or
Mechanicks: they had no Rules nor Method fixed: their intention was more
to communicate to each other their discoveries which they could make in