The name of Sir Joseph Banks is one that is very familiar to historians of science. For forty-two years, from 1778 to his death in 1820, he was the President of the Royal Society. Banks also played significant roles in the discovery and settlement of Australia, the formation of the Botanic Gardens at Kew, the reform of the coinage of the Royal Mint and the improvement of wool quality in sheep. Banks was very much an establishment figure. Through his estates in Lincolnshire, he ranked among the 300 to 400 wealthiest men in the kingdom.Footnote 1 He was created a baronet in 1781, was made a Knight of the Order of the Bath in 1795, was a confidant of George iii, and a ‘relation’ of the Tory Lord Liverpool and his son, who was Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827.Footnote 2
Banks also carried out an extensive international correspondence and, although his carefully ordered collections of letters have been dispersed, much work has been done to try to reassemble them.Footnote 3 In short, although Banks’s achievements had been little studied until the latter part of the last century, he ‘is too large an historical presence to be comfortably ignored’.Footnote 4 Even so, what is usually missing from these accounts of Banks is his interest in, and involvement with, the study of archaeology and his role as an antiquary. This neglect by the ‘scientific’ community is summed up in the published accounts of the seminar held under the auspices of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society where there was no acknowledgement of this aspect of his life;Footnote 5 nor is it given more than the barest mention in the standard work on his lifeFootnote 6 or in the more popular life.Footnote 7
Only recently has ‘Banks the antiquary’ started to be given his due,Footnote 8 and the subject is a large one. This paper – mainly based on an examination of the minute books and papers held by the Society of Antiquaries of London – will consider a limited aspect of his influence, namely his role in the governance of the Society from around 1780 to his death in 1820, a time of changing conditions in this country and abroad.
Joseph banks: the new fellow
Banks was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries for a long period (1766–1820). He first appears in the annals of the Society on 19 January 1766 when the minute book records ‘a Testimonial recommending Joseph Banks of Reivesbey in Lincolnshire Esq a Gentleman of great Merit, Learning and other accomplishments, & particularly well versed in the Antiquities of this and other Nations; being desirous of the honour of Election into the Society, is accordingly recommended as a Person in every way qualified to become a useful & valuable Member’, signed by ‘Charles, Ld. Bp. of Carlisle’, T Astle, C Morton and W Norris. The formula of accomplishments is a standard one for the time. There is no sign of Banks having attended earlier meetings as a guest, which sometimes happened in order that a future Fellow might become ‘known’ to the Society. The signatories of his Testimonial, including that of the President (the Lord Bishop of Carlisle), and the social status that Banks enjoyed can be judged by the fact that, at the same meeting, the same Fellows put forward a testimonial for Viscount Nuneham.
Banks was duly elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) without demur on 27 February, being admitted on 3 March 1766, ‘signing the obligations’ and giving a bond for his subscription, not paying for future subscriptions by a lump sum as some did. This bond for a guinea was dated 20 March 1766, again gave his address as Revesby Abbey and was sealed with his personal seal, the witness being ‘Saml. Phipps’.Footnote 9 The witness was possibly a member of the family of his good friend from his Eton days, Constantine Phipps, later Lord Mulgrave, although Samuel does not appear as a forename in the main Phipps family tree.Footnote 10
During this period a full list of Fellows attending each meeting, together with any guests, was given in the Minutes. This happened until the meeting of 13 April 1769, after which the practice ceased and only Fellows who were introducing guests and the names of guests are recorded. We are therefore able to track the early attendance of Joseph Banks at the Society meetings. Due to his travels, this was not very frequent.Footnote 11 He attended twice in February 1767 and twice in March 1767, including the occasion on 5 March when he brought Dr SolanderFootnote 12 as a guest and exhibited a jewel ‘supposed to be of some Antiquity’.Footnote 13 He then attended twice in February 1768 and once in April with Sir J Russell Bt as his guest.Footnote 14 Banks was also elected on to the Council of the Society in that year (more on this below).
On his return from the Pacific voyage in 1771, Banks benefited from royal interest and the subsequent patronage of George iii. He also rose through the ranks of the Royal Society, being first elected to their Council in November 1773, along with other Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) whose names will occur again as FSAs, such as Daines Barrington and Owen Salusbury Brereton. Banks was re-elected to the Royal Society Council in 1774 but stood down for the next two years, before being elected again in 1777 and becoming President in 1778. Amongst other useful positions, Banks was elected a member of the Society of Dilettanti in February 1774 and he became a member of Dr Johnson’s ‘Literary Club’, meeting at the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, in November 1778.
As far as the Antiquaries were concerned, Banks continued to take a part in their activities. Though there is no record of him attending meetings with guests from 1771 to early 1774, that is not to say that he did not attend meetings. On 24 February 1774 he is recorded as having attended an Ordinary Meeting with Dr Blagden as his guest.Footnote 15 In succeeding years he attended occasionally with guests such as Dr Solander and Colonel Roy.Footnote 16 Banks also proposed members for election and gave his support to the testimonial of ‘Mr Englefield’.Footnote 17 In April 1774 he was elected a member of Council, choosing to stand only for one year; he was then elected again to Council in April 1778. Banks seems to have been more active than many FSAs but he does not appear to have given the Society any special attention. However, if his statement that he was elected President of the Royal Society with the support of his friends in the AntiquariesFootnote 18 means anything, he must have been cultivating those who were Fellows of both Societies.
Joseph banks, prs, and the somerset house move
Banks’s relationship with the Antiquaries changed when he became President of the Royal Society at a time when a move to new premises provided by the Government was nearing implementation. As is well known, the Society of Antiquaries gained apartments in Somerset House,Footnote 19 then being designed and built, through the influence of the Bishop of Worcester, brother of the First Lord of the Treasury, Lord North. The approval for this, given in the spring of 1776,Footnote 20 must have been at the expense of apartments intended for the Royal Society.
In her History of the Society of Antiquaries (1956), Joan Evans’s account reads as if the complaints of the Royal Society about the loss of their ‘museum’ (correctly ‘Repository’) were only made in late 1780.Footnote 21 In fact the decision, in principle, to offer the Royal Society Repository to the British Museum was taken in 1779, and can be seen as an early example of the influence of their new President, Joseph Banks, who had been a member of the Antiquaries’ Council in 1778.Footnote 22 Despite the four years’ notice of the plans, the need for the two societies to share an entrance, ante-room, hall, staircase and, possibly, a porter’s lodge caused problems when they moved in to their new premises. As Joan Evans, followed to an extent by Sweet, records it, a particular dispute took place over the Porter’s Lodge, which the Royal Society had solely allocated to itself; the Antiquaries had ‘to climb down’ and Banks was said to be to blame.Footnote 23 In fact, the events do not quite appear as Joan Evans describes them, although there obviously were tensions.Footnote 24
One thing is clear: the Antiquaries were slow in preparing for the move into Somerset House. The ‘Master Key’ for the apartments was formally presented to the Council of the Antiquaries on 23 November 1780 by Sir William Chambers; Sir Joseph Ayloffe, Vice-President, was in the chair and Daines Barrington was present. On 30 November 1780 the Royal Society held their first meeting in Somerset House. It took the Antiquaries until 11 January 1781 to hold theirs. Yet plenty of warning had been given. The Antiquaries Council had agreed on 7 July 1780 to set up a meeting with the President of the Royal Society to agree such practicalities as the type of lights to be fitted, and the sharing of the costs for the Hall, Staircase and Common Room (or Ante-Room) at the top of the stairs (interestingly enough, there is no mention at this date of the costs of the Porter’s Lodge being shared). This meeting took place on 20 November 1780, but pace Joan Evans, was not a joint meeting of the Councils of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies but of selected individuals, and, from the account of the meeting recorded both in a loose paper and as written into the formal record of the Antiquaries’ Council meeting of 13 December 1780, it is interesting to note that the sole representative of the Royal Society was Joseph Banks, while the Antiquaries fielded Sir Joseph Ayloffe, O Salusbury Brereton and the Revd Dr Lort (all being Vice-Presidents), together with Edward Bridgen (Treasurer) and William Norris (Secretary). There seems to have been no difficulty with agreeing the style of lights to be used and the sharing of the costs and there is no indication of any major problem.
Having received the ‘Master Key’ on 23 November, and presumably having observed the Royal Society hold their first meeting in Somerset House on 30 November, Council met on 13 December, again with Sir Joseph Ayloffe in the chair and with Daines Barrington present. The date of the Antiquaries’ first meeting in their new premises was agreed as 11 January 1781, with the chair being taken at 6.45pm. A letter from Sir William Chambers was read requesting a meeting for the following day to receive, in conjunction with the Royal Society, formal delivery of ‘Possession of the Apartments’.
At this meeting of Council the following day (14 December), chaired again by Sir Joseph Ayloffe, but in the absence of Daines Barrington, Sir William Chambers reported that the papers apportioning the apartments were not ready and it was agreed to leave the matter in dispute (presumably because of the Porter’s Lodge, although it is not specified) ‘to be adjusted by the President (of the Antiquaries) when he comes to Town’.
The cause of this delay was the following letter (the ‘memorial’ referred to below) sent by Daines Barrington to the Treasury on 9 December, of which, curiously, there was no mention at the 13 December Council meeting.
Dear Sir
To convince you how necessary it is that our servants should have a wholesome place to sit below stairs which they can only have by using the porter’s lodge in common with the servants of the Rl. Society I will venture to propose on the part of the Society of Antiquaries that if the R: Sy: will give up their present kitchen (which is wholesome) & take ours in exchange they shall have the exclusive property in the porters lodge
Ever Yrs
D Barrington
P:S: Turn over
It is very extraordinary that the Antiquaries are not supposed to have a porter when they pay wages to a servant under that denomination – It is true indeed that this same porter is their messenger & so is the porter of the Royal Society their messenger likewise – In short the two societies have the same number of servants & of the same quality but it is supposed that the Rl: Sy: want to procure apartments for the (‘wife’ crossed out) widow of their late Clerk & her three daughters – which they should rather furnish in their late house at Crane Court or pay for their lodgings elsewhere if they think it right to do what is kind & charitable – His Majesty & the Board of Treasury can only mean to provide the proper offices for the necessary & constant servants of the two Societies –
I don’t have to multiply difficulties & objections but there is another room over the porters lodge which both Sr: Wm: Chambers & his foreman have shewn as belonging to both Societies – I suspect however that in this late order which hath been procured from the Treasury that room also is destind to the Rl: Society exclusively –
Barrington made no mention of Joseph Banks, which contrasts with what followed at the Antiquaries’ Council. This communication seems to be the ‘memorial to the Treasury’ which Barrington says he submitted (see later), although it lacks the signatures of Bridgen and Norris whose support Barrington claimed.Footnote 25
The President returned to town and presided over a Council Meeting held on ‘Wednesday, 3 January 1781 at Noon 12 o’clock’. Present were J Milles, President, Sir J Ayloffe Bt, O Salusbury Brereton and the Revd Dr Lort (all Vice-Presidents), E Bridgen Esq (Treasurer), R Gough Esq (Director), R Willmott Esq, T Astle Esq and Mr Norris (Secretary). Prominent amongst the business of the meeting was ‘a paper delivered in from the Honble D Barrington containing his Motives for laying a Memorial before the Lords of the Treasury against the intended Appropriation of the Porter’s Lodge to the use of the Royal Society only’, which is here transcribed.
Temple
Jan. 3. 1781
As I understand that the President means to lay before the Council this Day a Proposal relative to the Dispute between the Royal & Antiquary. Society concerning the Porter’s Lodge at Somerset House, I am very unhappy to say that I totally disagree with him in regard to every Fact and Ground upon which the proposal is founded.
Though I unfortunately thus differ from him in Opinion yet I do not mean to attend the Council, because conceiving as I do (perhaps erroneously) that the Concessions made thereby to Sir. Wm. Chambers and the Royl. Society are inconsistent with the real Interest and Dignity of the Antiquaries, I could not but oppose with warmth what I must always consider in that light. But tho’ I shall not for this reason attend the Council, yet I think it is incumbent upon me to state to those, who may not have been present upon other Occasions from what Motives I originally stirred in this Affair.
Rather more than two months ago Sir Wm. Chambers accosted me in Somerset House with the following words: ‘Mr. Banks complains much that the Royal Society hath not sufficient room in Somerset House.’ To this I answered, ‘Both Societies are nobly accommodated and we should know when we are well’. To this Sir Wm. Chambers replied: ‘Yes, but Mr. Banks is not satisfied.’
Though this discourse from Sir.Wm. Chambers had clearly its meaning, as will appear hereafter, yet I thought no more about the Conversation for some days when it was rumour’d that the Treasury had order’d the Porter’s Lodge to be given exclusively to the Royal Society.
On hearing this, I immediately went to Somerset-House, where I did not find Sir Wm Chambers, but spoke to his Foreman & Deputy, who told me, that he was assur’d there could be no Foundation for this Report, as the Lodge had always been destin’d for the Use of the two Societies. I afterwards saw one of the Miss Robertson’s (for whose Use this Invasion of our property must have been intended) who equally denied the least knowledge of the matter. (I say this, because the Royal Society hath eight rooms, with Fireplaces above Stairs, besides other good conveniences for Servants, & consequently, no additional Rooms could be wanted for the real servants of that Society). Upon this Information, I concluded the Report I had learned was an idle one, til I happened afterw’ds to meet Sir Wm Chambers himself, who after first denying it, at last admitted, that the Treasury would order possession to the Royal Society the Day following. Such possession however was prevented from being delivered, by a Memorial to the Treasury which I had the honour to sign with Mr Bridgen & Mr Norris.
Some Days after it was so presented, &, as I conceived, with the most certain prospect of success, the President came to Town, in whose hands the Management of this Affair hath since been, & now rests.
All that I have now therefore to beg of the Council is, that if they disapprove of what hath hitherto been done by the Memorialists whilst they were Agents for the Society, that they would be so good as to signify so much, because the memorial must be withdrawn, & the Treasury no further bothered therewith.
Daines Barrington
PS I need scarcely mention that Sir Wm Chambers never gave the least intimation to anyone of what he had been concocting with Mr Banks, til he was interrogated by myself, tho he had attended a Council of the Antiquaries, after he had procured an Order from the Treasury for delivering the exclusive possession of the Porter’s lodge.
I herewith inclose that Order of 22nd of November stated to have been issued in consequence of Sir Wm Chambers’s previous Letter.
It likewise appears, by the same Order, that Sir Wm Chambers was so conscious of the Antiquaries Right to one half of the Porter’s Lodge that he hath fobb’d us off with the Moonshine of the Royal Society’s Porter being obliged to attend I Hour every Thursday evening.
An incomplete version of this letter was published in part by Joan Evans as a ‘letter to Gough, probably from Daines Barrington’.Footnote 26 Unfortunately Evans does not give a source for her version of this letter. The original version of the letter to Council, definitely by Daines Barrington and addressed to Norris, the Secretary, still exists in the Society archives and is in accordance with the minuted copy.Footnote 27 A search through the Antiquaries’ correspondence files, the three volumes of Gough’s lettersFootnote 28 and the Daines Barrington papers the Antiquaries holds, has failed to find this copy of the letter. But following Joan Evans it alone has the words ‘Banks is the villain!’.
It seems possible that Joan Evans had made a mistake, that the letter she quoted was the ‘Norris–Daines Barrington’ one set out above and that the comment ‘Banks is the villain!’ was not by Daines Barrington but, perhaps, a comment by Joan Evans herself that became incorporated into her transcription.Footnote 29
Having heard of Daines Barrington’s ‘motives’, the Council then considered the text of the Treasury Order. The President then reported ‘that Sir Wm Chambers had proposed to the President to fit up, as a Parlour, the Room in the Basement Story (once intended as a Lobby for Servants on Thursday Evenings) & to appropriate the same to the use of the Society of Antiquaries’. The matter was concluded: ‘Council are of the opinion to acquiesce in the said Order and Proposal’ and, at a Council meeting on 15 February 1781, Sir William Chambers brought the agreed plans for the allocated accommodation and they were duly signed.
It is worth noting that Sir William Chambers subsequently made the following report to the Treasury on 12 January 1781:
and as the Royal and Antiquary Societies are Anxious to have their appartments regularly given up to them, without further loss of time … whose little difference about their porters lodge, is now, I apprehend, in a fair way of being amicably Settled, without further trouble to you, or to the Lords of the Treasury. The Antiquary Society do not Object to the porters rooms being given to the Royal Society’s porter, if he Opens the door for them on their Corporation days, as the Treasury order directs; and if an underground room first intended as a footmens waiting lobby be given up to them, for the use of their porter: both which proposals, I apprehend, The Royal So: will not Object to; as the room required, is absolutely of no use to them.Footnote 30
Part of the background to this affair was that, in October 1780, the President, Dean Milles, had suffered a stroke.Footnote 31 This was the reason that Sir Joseph Ayloffe was in the chair and also, perhaps, why three Vice-Presidents were deemed necessary to meet Joseph Banks to discuss accommodation. As we have seen, Dean Milles recovered enough to take the chair at the inaugural meeting in Somerset House. However, Dean Milles’s indisposition began a debate about a possible successor, with Daines Barrington’s name being mentioned. This might explain his actions in writing to the Treasury, as a future presidential candidate, seeking to make a very public mark of leadership. The acceptance by Council of the Chambers/Treasury allocation of the Somerset House apartments against Daines Barrington’s stated position seems to have led to him absenting himself from the Society and Council for a while. He next appears in the record in the late spring of 1782.
Is it possible to clarify the role of Joseph Banks in this affair? It has been suggested that Banks was elected President of the Royal Society as part of a process which sought to restore or increase its status, not just in Britain but in relation to similar bodies in Europe. The move to the apartments at Somerset House was also part of this process. Sir William Pringle, Banks’s predecessor as President of the Royal Society, said ‘that this alotment of publick apartments to the Royal Society, will be understood by all Europe, as meant to confer on them an external splendor, in some measure proportioned to the consideration in which they have been held for more than a century’,Footnote 32 so it would not be surprising if Banks, as a young President, had been motivated by a desire to assert the premier position of what was the older Society.
It is always difficult to arrive at a true picture of what was happening in affairs such as the ‘Porter’s Lodge dispute’. That there was some tension over the allocation of space, once the Societies moved in, seems to be clear from the change of the basement room from a general lobby to a parlour dedicated to the Antiquaries’ use. Equally it is curious that, even as early as July 1780, no mention is made by the Antiquaries of the sharing of the joint costs of the Porter’s Lodge, so it would not seem to have been on their agenda at this time. It would suggest that, far from being a major row, the dispute was largely engendered by Daines Barrington, perhaps with the Presidency in mind, perhaps combined with an ‘anti-Joseph Banks’ sentiment. As we will see, Joseph Banks remained on good terms with his friends in the Antiquaries, however, and there was apparently no more trouble between the two societies over the shared accommodation. He was certainly present at the opening meeting of 11 January 1781, along with his guest, his close friend and companion, Dr Solander, to hear Dean Milles deliver his first speech in Somerset House.
Uniting the royal and the antiquarian societies?
Another source of tension between elements of the Royal and the Antiquarian Societies may have been the possibility that, as well as sharing the same roof, the two Societies might unite – or at least have a President in common. It should be (and was) remembered that Martin Folkes had been President of both Societies in 1751.Footnote 33
These fears of a move for unification with the Royal Society cannot have been soothed by President Milles’s speech of gratitude to King George iii at the first meeting in Somerset House on 11 January 1781.Footnote 34 Milles said that he first wished to make ‘a public Testimony of Gratitude to our Munificent Sovereign’ and to congratulate the Society ‘upon the additional Honour they receive, by this public sanction of their Establishment’. He continued that, since the accession of George iii, ‘every Species of useful Learning & Knowledge has found Favour, & the warmest Encouragement from our King. The two learned Societies have felt the beneficial Influence of his Patronage. The Academies of Science, & the School of Art, have shared in the Liberality of His Bounty’.
Milles then praised the Royal Academy, pointing out that the sculptor of the Royal bust, Mr Bacon, and Sir William Chambers, the architect, were members of the Academy. He then continued:
The Royal & Antiquarian Societies which date their Establishment from an earlier Period of Time, have much to acknowledge for the continued Favour of our Gracious Monarch – Each of them, as Opportunities were presented having been honoured with His Protection & Encouragement for the Advancement of Learning & the Perfection of every liberal Science. Omnes Artes (according to Cicero) quo ad Humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune Vinculum, etquasi cognatione quadam interfeccontinentur. If any such Relation does subsist between the Sciences & Arts, our Gracious Sovereign, by improving this Hint, has given the fullest Effort to its influence.
He has placed us within these Walls, to consummate with Freedom, & to contribute with our respective Abilities, to the Improvement of Literature, Science & the Arts; wch by their present happy & judicious connection, become mutually Handmaids to each other, always resident within the same Pale, & Rivals only in their Attempts to produce with the greatest Expedition & Effect, Materials for perfecting the Intentions of their Royal Benefactor & Patron.
It is for us, Gentlemen, to consider in what particular Circumstances, the Nature of our Establishment will permit us to be instrumental to this general System.
A striking Similarity of Studies in the Pursuit and Illustration of the various Subjects of Literature and Science, form so natural and close an Alliance between the two learned Societies that it would perhaps appear impertinent to enlarge upon so obvious a Topick. But if I may be allowed to express a Wish that the Natural Alliance may be strengthened by the friendly Intercourse & Disposition towards each other, which have so honourably distinguished the conduct of these learned Assemblies; & that Literature, whatever garb it wears, may continue to find a sure & warm Patronage within these Walls.
Milles then went on to consider the history of painting and the Academy of Arts.
The Society ‘expressed warmest approbation of his very excellent Speech’. It was ordered that it should be recorded in the Minute Book and that it should be printed in the ‘ensuing volume of Archaeologia’ – ‘as well … as in a detached State, for the present more immediate Use of the Members’. Individual copies were made and circulated, though the text of the speech was not printed in Archaeologia.Footnote 35 Milles later presented a short of address of thanks directly to the King on 7 February 1781.Footnote 36
We can wonder at quite how this speech was received. Taken in one way ‘a striking similarity of studies’ and ‘the natural alliance’ could be read as an encouragement to hopes or fears for a closer unity between the two Societies, especially as they were literally next door to each other and shared at least one third of their membership.Footnote 37 Were the premises at Somerset House granted by the Crown on an understanding between Dean Milles and the Bishop of Worcester that a union between the Royal and the Antiquarian Societies would be an eventual consequence?
Joseph banks as an officer of the society
Banks as a member of Council
Joseph Banks was elected on to the Antiquaries’ Council on five ‘new’ occasions.Footnote 38 He was elected first on 23 April 1767 as a ‘new’ member of Council, although he was not present in person at the Anniversary Meeting. He attended one Council meeting on 17 March 1768 but did not stand for Council again in April 1768, presumably because he was already giving priority to the voyage to the South Seas. The second time he was elected to Council was 23 April 1774. He attended meetings of this Council twice, on 4 and 6 April 1775. Banks was elected for a third time on to Council in April 1778. He attended two out of the four Council meetings, on 8 July 1778 and 20 January 1779. He did not stand for Council in April 1779. Banks had been elected to the Council of the Royal Society in November 1777. The 1778 Antiquaries election might be seen as part of the process that saw him manoeuvring to succeed Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal Society in November 1778.Footnote 39 As we have already seen, Banks referred to the support of ‘his friends in the Antiquaries’ as being useful for his election as President of the Royal Society.Footnote 40 The fourth time that Banks was on Council began with the elections of 23 April 1785, Banks then being re-elected in the following Aprils of 1786 and 1787, so he was on Council until 22 April 1788. Banks did attend Council during these years, and this will be dealt with further below. As we will see, it was a time of rapid change in the person of the President, with Dean Milles dying in February 1784, Edward King taking over until the Anniversary on 23 April 1784 and, in a contested election, the Earl of Leicester being voted in over King in 1785.
There is then a gap in Banks’s involvement with the Antiquaries Council that lasted until the contested presidential election of April 1812, which saw Lord Aberdeen defeating Sir Henry Englefield. This will also be considered in more detail below. As part of the ‘new’ Council Banks was elected and continued to be so until his death, his last election as a member of the ‘Old’ Council being on 24 April 1820, a total of nine elections. There is no record of Banks attending even one meeting of Council during this latter period. While it was not unusual for elected Council members not to attend, it probably indicates that Banks stayed (or was kept?) on Council for reasons of status.
Joseph Banks in the chair
While Banks never served as a Vice-President, possibly because of his status as President of the Royal Society, he was called upon on several occasions to take the chair, ‘as Senior Fellow present’ at Ordinary Meetings, in the absence of any Officers. This happened in December 1786 and January 1787, while he was on Council, and in November 1789 and 1790, June and December 1798 and February 1799. The pattern shows the absence of Officers at the beginning and ending of sessions but also gives us some idea of how assiduous an attendee Banks was at the Society meetings, at least during this period of roughly thirteen years. There is then a gap (as we shall see probably significant) from 1799 until 14 May 1812, when, less than a month after the election of Lord Aberdeen, Banks took the chair as Senior Fellow present. He did the same three times in the autumn session of 1812 (including the Ordinary Meeting on Christmas Eve), Lord Aberdeen having sent his apologies that he had been unexpectedly delayed in Scotland by the business of the election of Scottish peers.
Joseph Banks as scrutator and auditor
Joseph Banks served the Society in the two roles of ‘scrutator’ and ‘auditor’. The role of ‘scrutator’ appeared (and appears) in the statutes of the Society as one of two Fellows who, at the Anniversary elections for Council and Officers, on the nomination of the President (or Vice-President) and with the approbation of the Fellows present, oversees the elections, especially checking the Fellows’ voting and counting the votes cast for each of the candidates. Banks acted in this capacity on St George’s Day 1790. His colleague was the Revd Mr Denne and one of the Secretaries noted down the names of those voting. At first sight there is nothing to indicate that there were any problems with this election, with the Earl of Leicester standing as President yet again, and actually present in the chair at the meeting. However, in the margin of the minutes is an addition which notes that the Revd John Pridden had ‘offered himself as a candidate for the vacant Office of Secretary, but not having been chosen of the late Council, he was not eligible’.Footnote 41 The background to this is that at the Council meeting on 14 April 1790, one of the secretaries, the Revd John Norris, had formally resigned and the Council had agreed on the motion of Thomas Astle that the Revd Thomas William Wright be put forward as the replacement. Thomas Wright had only been elected a Fellow four months previously.Footnote 42 His testimonial had been read on 5 November 1789, he appeared as the guest of Dr Layard on 19 November 1789, was elected 10 December 1789 and admitted 17 December 1789. This suggests grooming for the future vacancy, and perhaps it was the prospect of trouble at the elections that caused Banks to be appointed scrutator as a ‘heavyweight’ Fellow.
The role of ‘auditor’ was of importance when the only way of scrutinizing the Society’s accounts was by the appointment of four Fellows as ‘auditors’, who then reported back to the Fellowship on the income and expenditure for the previous year. Unlike the present day, when the accounts and the elections are tied to the events of the Anniversary Day, on or around St George’s Day (23 April), the audit was a separate process in the eighteenth century. Joseph Banks was first appointed one of the auditors on 23 February 1786 and reported to the Society on behalf of the other auditors on 2 March 1786. The same process happened in the next two years, appointment on 15 February, report on 22 February 1787, appointment on 28 February, report on 13 March 1788.Footnote 43 In this instance, there does not seem to have been any special reason why the ‘heavyweight’ Banks was called on to be an auditor,Footnote 44 but it is worth noting that when, in 1789, Banks was no longer an auditor, the report by Craven Ord was significantly shorter and more superficial – so Banks was not just exercising an ‘establishment’ role; he was apparently doing the job in a thorough manner.
In the last half of the 1780s Banks was thus not only attending the meetings of the Antiquaries, but he was also sufficiently part of the Society establishment to be called upon to fill the roles of auditor and scrutator, and importantly, to accept them and carry them out with assiduity.
Joseph Banks and ‘guests’
In his fifty-four years as a Fellow of the Antiquaries Banks introduced around one hundred and forty guests (with many repeats) to its meetings (see Appendix 1).Footnote 45 There are no comparable figures for other Fellows at this period, but the general impression is that Banks was not generally using the meetings of the Society as a special social or ‘political’ vehicle, although he does introduce ‘foreigners’ and it was part of his network. It is also noteworthy that, after July 1808, Banks is not recorded as having introduced any guests. Amongst the names that occur on a regular basis are those people who were close to him: Dr Solander is a guest three times between 1767 and 1781 and Dr Charles Blagden was a guest on ten occasions from February 1774 to March 1784.Footnote 46
Joseph banks and presidential elections
Joseph Banks’s involvement with the governance of the Society of Antiquaries is most evident with the three contested presidential elections of 1785, 1799 and 1812. To have this number of contested presidential elections within such a relatively short period is noteworthy in the Society’s history, since such contests were, and remain, rare events. One question that will need to be considered is whether this number of contested elections was a result of Sir Joseph’s intervention, or whether they arose from contemporary social and political strains.
The background to the 1785 election
We have already seen that Dean Milles was known to be old and in poor health around the time of the proposed move to Somerset House in 1780. Walpole (no doubt with tongue in cheek) indicated that if Milles died, the ‘leaden mace’ should pass to Daines Barrington or, failing that, to Robin Masters, an even duller person in Walpole’s eyes.Footnote 47 So the prospect of an election and the possible candidates were already being discussed four years before the actual death of Dean Milles, which brought the matter to a head.
This was to be the first contested election for President in the history of the Society. To avoid confusion in what follows, it needs to be made clear that Joan Evans (in her History of the Society of Antiquaries (1956)) gets the dating and sequence of the events confused (and her chronology has been followed by others). In this she might have been misled by Nichols’ notes on Edward King in his Literary Anecdotes.Footnote 48 The following correct framework is based on the record in the Society’s Minute Books: 13 February 1784, Dean Milles, President dies; 21 February 1784, Edward King is appointed President by Council; 23 April 1784, Lord Leicester is unanimously elected President in an uncontested election; 23 April 1785, there is a contested election for the Presidency between Lord Leicester and Edward King, won by Leicester.
The background to the 1784 election
Dean Milles died on 13 February 1784, aged seventy. The Antiquaries Council met on 21 February with the Secretary, the Revd Mr Norris, in the chair. Two members of Council, O Salusbury Brereton and Edward King, indicated that they would like to be President. After a secret ballot Edward King was elected ‘by a great majority’. King then appointed as his Vice-Presidents Daines Barrington, Salusbury Brereton and the Revd Dr Michael Lort.
Joan Evans has described some of the administrative actions that King immediately put in hand,Footnote 49 but she missed out an important aspect, which was the appointment of a second Secretary. This was explicitly stated to be ‘after the manner of the Royal Society’. And further, the ‘present Secretary (Norris) shall make & form the Minutes in the same manner as the senior Secretary doth at the Meetings of the Royal Society’. King also recommended that George, Lord de Ferrers (later Lord Leicester) and John Topham fill the vacancies on Council.
The next meeting of Council on 26 February 1784 saw the vacancy list reduced, with Thomas Astle being appointed. There was another meeting on 5 March 1784, and then one on 12 March when Leicester, Topham and Astle were all in attendance and Leicester was added to the list of Vice-Presidents. The Council meeting of 19 March saw Leicester present, but not that on 4 April 1784.
Edward King was a ‘reforming’ President, but whether this was appreciated by many in the Society is not clear, and his copying of the structures of the Royal Society clearly caused resentment with the senior Secretary, Mr Norris.Footnote 50 In any event, Leicester was elected President ‘unanimously’ in an uncontested election at the Anniversary Meeting of 23 April 1784, although for the next two Council meetings, on 30 April and 8 May 1784, King took the chair as a Vice-President.
Lord Leicester
Lord Leicester was President of the Society of Antiquaries from 1784 until his death in 1811.Footnote 51 When he first appeared in the records of the Society he was called George Townsend, Baron Ferrars, or, as he preferred, Baron de Ferrers, through the right of his mother. On 18 May 1784 he was created Earl of Leicester in his own right.Footnote 52 This was a political reward, as will be seen below. In 1807 he succeeded his father as the second Marquess Townsend. Leicester’s main antiquarian interests were heraldry and his own pedigree,Footnote 53 and this is illustrated in the Society’s minute book by the note added to the Ordinary Meeting of 29 April 1784 where he is referred to, for the first time, as the ‘Earl of Leicester’ and his genealogy is inserted opposite this appellation.Footnote 54
Unlike his predecessors Milles or King, Leicester was active in politics. In 1775 he had made it clear that he opposed all members of the ‘court party’ and later generally opposed the ministry of Lord North. In 1778 he asked the King to end the American war and in 1779 urged the King to dismiss Lord Sandwich. Given Banks’s closeness to Sandwich this would not have gone down well with him.Footnote 55 Leicester was thus clearly identified with the ‘anti-Court’ grouping. Following the resignation of Lord North in March 1782, Leicester as a ‘Whig’ supporter joined the Privy Council, and became Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners; later, under Pitt, he benefited from the ‘spoils of office’ as Master of the Royal Mint (1790–4), Joint Postmaster General (1790–9), Lord Steward of the Household (1799–1802), and so on.Footnote 56 None the less Leicester was definitely not a member of ‘the King’s Party’ but, at the time of his election as President in 1784, was actively involved with ‘party’ politics.Footnote 57
Relations between Banks and Leicester could be problematic. This can be illustrated by the ‘honour’ that Banks could bestow of membership of the elite Royal Society Dining Club. It could be taken that, with the election in 1786 of the Earl of Leicester to that Club, Banks was holding out some sort of ‘olive branch’.Footnote 58 If so, Leicester’s response was less than enthusiastic, for the following year ‘not having attended or paid his admission fee it was decided to declare his place vacated’. This contrasts with the lenient treatment of Lord Lewisham (of whom more later), elected to the ClubFootnote 59 but included in a list of those who had not attended for a year nor made excuses for their absence; while the others were expelled, he was allowed to continue a member.Footnote 60
The 1785 election
Lord Leicester had been President for a year when he was challenged for the post at the Anniversary Meeting of 1785. The evidence for the detail of this election comes from the Meetings minute book of the Society, an account in The Gentleman’s Magazine,Footnote 61 and from some minor documents and ‘gossip’.Footnote 62 As we will see there is evidence that the actual election was chaotic and may not have been without chicanery!
The minute book sets out the process of election in its usual minimal way, together with the final results. There is, however, what can be called an indignant note at the foot of the page which states that this was the first contested election for the Presidency that the Society had ever had. This is in the handwriting of Norris, who, as we have seen, had no reason to be friendly to King. According to The Gentleman’s Magazine, ‘Mr King did not offer himself to be elected President, he was induced on the day of the election’. That King was expecting a contest of sorts is clear from the printed letter which he had sent to Fellows asking for their vote to prevent him from being dismissed as a Vice-President.Footnote 63 At the meeting there was some confusion as to how the official presidential candidate and the challenger should be balloted for in the context of the election of the general Council. The minutes record two procedural matters:
But a question arising ‘whether the lists, now marked, comprehend the election both of officers & Council’, it was determined by the members of the former Council present to whom the Approval lay, in the Affirmative there being but two Negatives in the Ballot against it.
It was also made a Question ‘Whether the Marks against the Names in the present Lists were intended to elect both Officers & Council, unless the Name of any particular Office was added to any express name’. It was determined also in the Affirmative there being but two negatives on the Ballot.
The result of this interpretation of the statutes by the members of the former Council, as The Gentleman’s Magazine points out, is that ‘a single mark against the Earl of Leicester’s name should be interpreted as a double vote,Footnote 64 in consequence of which all the neutral votes were turned against Mr King’. One of the scrutators of the ballot was John Douglas who wrote: ‘I was kept seven hours without my dinner casting up votes till my eyes caught fire and cholic seized my bowels for the want of food’.Footnote 65 But despite the best efforts of Mr Douglas and colleague, there were mistakes in the counting for, as The Gentleman’s Magazine notes, with 104 Fellows voting, two of the candidates for Council received more votes than there were people present.Footnote 66 The ‘official’ result of the presidential election was that Leicester received sixty-two votes and King thirty-seven votes. It is idle to speculate, but while the majority of twenty-five might have been reduced if the ‘neutral’ votes had been discounted, the margin was probably large enough to mean that Leicester would have been elected in any case.
Why did King stand as President? The provincial gossip at the time seems to concentrate on King’s problems with his status as Vice-President, but there was certainly the feeling in the May of 1785 that ‘King seems to have a party’.Footnote 67 Was Joseph Banks of his party and did he encourage King to stand as President? Joseph Banks (then President of the Royal Society) stood and was elected back on to Council in 1785 and in 1786 he was not only re-elected to Council but two clear ‘allies’ – Gustavus Brander and R Banks Hodgkinson – were also elected. Banks regularly attended Council meetings over this period.Footnote 68 Banks was officially on Council until April 1788. We have no firm proof, but opposition to Leicester in 1785 might have been inspired by Sir Joseph Banks. As will become clear, the way Banks operated in the 1812 election of Lord Aberdeen makes his methods apparent, and there will be little doubt of his intervention in the 1799 presidential election. In all cases, the issue was political, and so we now need to address the question of where Banks stood.
The politics of Sir Joseph Banks
In the sense that he never stood for Parliament,Footnote 69 Sir Joseph Banks was not a politician: indeed he is said to have come down from Oxford ‘already determined at least on one thing – never to enter Parliament’.Footnote 70 He was, however, on good terms with King George iii and Queen Charlotte as an adviser, especially on the Royal Botanic Garden and the royal farm on the Kew estate, as well as on matters scientific. As Gascoigne says, ‘Banks’s long and, for the most part, close association with the King was consistent with his own conception of his role in public life as the servant of the King and his administration, rather than as someone allied with any particular party or faction’.Footnote 71 He also seriously engaged himself ‘with public affairs as an unpaid civil servant of Whitehall … from 1784’,Footnote 72 serving on the Privy Council from 1797 and as what has been called ‘His Majesty’s Ministre des Affaires Philosophiques, or … in more modern terms, his Minister for Science, and – perhaps – Technology’. Moreover, ‘his services were at no time a burden on the Treasury’.Footnote 73 None of these public, as opposed to royal, services were under a Whig political regime and although Banks valued his independence, he was also quite clearly a ‘Tory’ as well as a member of what has been termed ‘the King’s friends’. One example of Banks’s position comes from his exchange of letters with John Gillies who, writing on 24 June 1793, requests Banks to remove from the King’s mind ‘the absurd calumny of my being a Democratic’ and asks for his help in setting the matter right. The outcome on 26 June is that Gillies cannot adequately express his gratitude for Banks’s kindness.Footnote 74 As for Lord Leicester, his attack on Lord Sandwich in 1779 was on a close friend and ally of Banks. Indeed, when Banks was formally presented to the King as the new President of the Royal Society, it was not the former President who did the honours, as was usual, but the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich.Footnote 75
That holding ‘democratic principles’ could be interpreted as being ‘an enemy of the Crown’ is well illustrated by the case of the Academician William Hodges who, in the winter of 1794–5, had a private exhibition of two moral pictures of ‘the Effects of Peace and War’. The Duke of York took offence at the anti-war (seen as anti-Crown) nature of the exhibition and ordered it to be closed. ‘In fear for his freedom and safety, Hodges left London that spring.’Footnote 76
It is also instructive to consider briefly what was happening in the Royal Academy in the late 1790s, where two factions had formed: ‘the prevailing party’, around the President Benjamin West and Farington, and ‘the rebels’, formed around James Wyatt and John Singleton Copley.Footnote 77 The politics of this are complex but ‘the rebels’ were more favoured by the King, and when the ‘prevailing party’ attempted to improve its standing with George iii, he hinted at ‘disaffection’ and ‘a disposition to Anarchy in the Academy’. The King also intervened to have ‘illegal’ minutes expunged and there were even hints that he might dissolve the existing Academy and establish another.Footnote 78 One outcome of this strife was that Wyatt replaced West as President of the Royal Academy in 1805, although, as he was ineffective, West was later re-elected.
The Society of Antiquaries was not immune from conflict in the 1790s, involving some of the same people. James Wyatt had been appointed Surveyor of Somerset House in January 1797. He was also patronized by the King. However, Wyatt’s treatment of the restoration of Salisbury and Durham Cathedrals and the public criticism which followed, involving John Carter and Sir Henry Englefield, led to disputes within the Antiquaries. When Wyatt was proposed for election as an FSA in June 1797, he was blackballed. He was proposed again and, with the support of Samuel Lysons, was elected in December 1797. The aftermath of this was the resignation of Richard Gough as Director and calls by Banks and others for the expulsion of John Carter. These events formed the background to the second of the contested presidential elections.
The 1799 election
The trigger for the contested 1799 presidential election was Leicester’s announcement that he was standing down as President. The Banks faction put up Lord Lewisham, with a view to defeating the faction involving Sir Henry Englefield, Richard Gough and others.Footnote 79 When Lord Leicester changed his mind about resignation, it was decided to keep Lord Lewisham as a rival candidate. Lord Leicester won the election and stayed as President until his death in the summer of 1811.Footnote 80 It is quite clear that Sir Joseph Banks was very involved with his ‘faction’ in the lobbying that went on for this election. Leicester’s supporters thought that the aim was to remove not only Leicester, but all the Officers and the Secretaries as well.Footnote 81
A point to consider is whether Banks thought of standing himself for the Presidency. In a letter to William Forsyth dated 11 April 1799, Banks says that he finds himself abused in the newspapers by Lord Leicester’s friends who insinuate that he, Banks, is to be a candidate for the Presidency of the Antiquaries. Because of this Banks felt it necessary to canvass for Lord Lewisham and asks Forsyth to vote for him.Footnote 82 To this ‘rumour’ can be added the statement, commenting on this election, which appeared later in The Gentleman’s Magazine in May 1803, probably written by the disaffected Richard Gough: ‘and to make the Society of Antiquaries dependent upon the RS, as Holland is on France, an attempt was made to introduce (will it be too strong to say thrust) a Botanist into a chair which had ever been filled by Antiquaries’.Footnote 83 There has been a general assumption that the ‘Botanist’ was Lord Lewisham, but probably the best-known ‘Botanist’ in Britain was meant, that is, Sir Joseph Banks. It can therefore be conjectured that at this time Banks, President of the Royal Society, was thinking of standing for the Presidency of the Antiquaries. In the event he did not, and we need to consider why Lord Lewisham was chosen.
Lord Lewisham
Lord Lewisham (1755–1810) was William George Legge, styled Viscount Lewisham until 1801 when, on his father’s death he succeeded as the third Earl Dartmouth. It must have helped him, for a while, that his step-uncle was Lord North of ‘the loss of America’. He was at Harrow from 1770 to 1771 and did the Grand Tour in 1775–8. He was Lord of the Bedchamber for the Prince of Wales 1782–3, and was given the Garter in 1805. As a politician he had supported the North ministry.Footnote 84 It can therefore be suggested that Lewisham was more acceptable politically to the ‘Banks faction’ than the Earl of Leicester.
Farington’s diaries record the course of the plotting for this election in some detail, with the first mention of Lord Lewisham’s name on 20 February 1799,Footnote 85 but it is also made clear that it is Banks who is organizing the campaign, with Samuel Lysons doing the ‘legwork’, and this is summed up on 12 April 1799 by the Duke of Norfolk uttering ‘a flaming philippic against Sir Joseph Banks’ for interfering in the election.Footnote 86 The letter of 1803 in The Gentleman’s Magazine, referred to above, also seems to confirm that there was a determined effort by the ‘Banks faction’ to take the Presidency. In the event, the Earl of Leicester won by fifty-six votes. However, tensions remained about who ran the Society, and although the ‘Englefield faction’ was in the ascendant for a while, the problems were not resolved. This also seems to have been a period when Banks was not involved with the governance of the Society.
The 1812 election
Much of the detail of the contested election of 1812 has already been published by Bernard Nurse, FSA.Footnote 87 In summary, the President, Lord Leicester, died in July 1811. Sir Henry Englefield, who had been an active Vice-President for the previous ten years, was elected President by Council in a contested vote with Anthony Hamilton, won when Englefield voted for himself in the absence of the other candidate.Footnote 88 When it came to the Anniversary election in April 1812, Englefield was opposed by Lord Aberdeen, who won by 251 votes to 184.Footnote 89 Besides Banks, we need to consider the role of three people: Englefield, Aberdeen and Lysons.
Sir Henry Englefield
It is generally accepted that Englefield was a man of learning,Footnote 90 but he had several factors operating against him in his wish to be President. He was a Roman Catholic, a convicted adulterer and a strong supporter of Carter in the problems over Wyatt.Footnote 91 Nurse feels that it was Englefield’s adultery that really counted against him in the election. The legal cases associated with this were in 1799 and 1800, so a considerable time before the election, and they did not apparently affect Englefield’s appointment as a Vice-President, nor his general social standing. The ‘Wyatt and Carter affair’ had been in 1797, and with the Regency in place, George iii would not have been taking an interest. Neither of these factors would have helped gain Englefield support among some of the Fellowship, but it seems that religion was the deciding factor. Certainly the author of the obituary of Englefield in The Gentleman’s Magazine, written some ten years after the election, thought this was the issue, noting that when Leicester died he was elected President of the Antiquaries, ‘a well deserved but short-lived honour, his religious sentiments being the alleged barrier to his re-election’.Footnote 92 In the context of the times it should be remembered that Roman Catholic issues had been a major problem for the King, and remained so for the Prince Regent.Footnote 93 Englefield was a high-profile and active campaigner in the cause of improving the legal position of Roman Catholics. The week before the Antiquaries election, on 15 April, Sir Henry Englefield was one of the five people who presented a petition about the position of English Roman Catholics to the Prince Regent at a levee.Footnote 94 The strength of the anti-Roman Catholic feeling against Engelfield can be judged from an article in the conservative journal, the Anti-Jacobin Review. This appeared in February 1812 as an introduction to a review of Archaeologia, 16. The review is anonymous but internal evidence shows that the reviewer was well acquainted with the Antiquaries.Footnote 95
We noticed the first part of this volume on its appearance, since that time considerable alterations have taken place in the society. Its late noble president has paid the debt of nature, and been succeeded, for a time, by one of those busy and ambitious votaries of popery, men who aspire to distinction rather to give dignity to their superstition, than to enjoy honours, or benefit society. If, indeed, Sir H C Englefield were really as desirous of promoting the interests of the society of antiquaries, as he is of giving popularity to his own creed, he most assuredly would not force himself into the president’s chair against the wishes of all the better informed and most useful members. Even his temporary election by the council, was such as few men of more elevated minds could have brooked, and, notwithstanding all his exertions, he only succeeded by a single vote against the Rev Dr Hamilton, a man of too much dignified independence to covert such an honour, and too much philosophical austerity to form partizans, or conciliate attachments.
Lords Aberdeen and Kenyon are his competitors, the former is a well known antiquary, and has deservedly the unanimous support of all the philosophers or men of learning and talents in the society. Among the votaries of the baronet, are found those selfish, illiterate mechanics, and shallow sceptics, who think, by elevating superstition, they degrade Christianity; as the chief, so are his followers, coxcombs and sciolists [amateur dabblers], with not one man of science or learning among them.’
The reviewer then said to the Fellows: ‘let them beware lest their enemies seize the strong hold of a learned society of antiquaries, to prepare the minds of Britons again for the yoke of superstition and slavery’.
As Nurse has pointed out,Footnote 96 Englefield thought that Banks’s opposition to him was because of an ‘old grudge’ – perhaps the ‘Wyatt and Carter affair’ – but amongst the combination of factors against Engelfield, his religion seems to have been the deciding one. Banks does not seem to have been a religious person,Footnote 97 so it is not possible to accuse him of religious bigotry, but did he deliberately manipulate contemporary fears to achieve the result that he wanted?
Lord Aberdeen
Lord Aberdeen was only twenty-eight years old when he was elected President. In politics he can be labelled a ‘Tory’.Footnote 98 He has been criticized for his poor attendance record at the Society. What is worth noting is that he had good reasons for this in his early days as President. His wife, Catherine, died on 29 February 1812. As a form of mourning it is said that Aberdeen then turned to the Diplomatic Service and was involved in negotiations with the Austrian Empire in Vienna in October 1813 and at the end of the war with France from February 1814 to May 1815.Footnote 99 He was thus absent from this country for long periods. At the time of his election he was a Scottish representative peer. This meant that he had to be absent from London and in Edinburgh from time to time to ensure that he gained one of these elected places in the House of Lords.Footnote 100 This problem was solved when he was raised to the United Kingdom peerage in 1814, giving him a guaranteed place in the House of Lords. On 31 January 1812, Lord Aberdeen had spoken in the House of Lords against the proposed Roman Catholic legislation. He allowed the justice of the proposals, but said that it was ‘a premature and unseasonable period to press them’.Footnote 101 It is also worthwhile noting that the first Lord Redesdale, FSA, appears on the list with Lord Aberdeen. Redesdale was a Tory, and a political ally of Aberdeen, but what is also important is that he was a known opponent of the ‘official’ emancipation of Roman Catholics. This could explain in part his opposition to Englefield as President.Footnote 102
The move to have Aberdeen elected as President seems to have started in the autumn of 1811, with his admission as a Fellow nearly six years after his election.Footnote 103
Samuel Lysons
Samuel Lysons was very much the ‘creature’ – more politely, the protégé – of Sir Joseph Banks,Footnote 104 and it will be proposed that, from 1812 to Lysons’s death in 1819, Banks felt that he had at last achieved a real measure of control of the Antiquaries.
A view of Samuel Lysons around 1801, when he was still Director, said that: ‘He was opinionated, dogmatical, and, at times, overbearing. There was only one dictum to which he apparently, deferred – and that was the opinion of Sir Joseph Banks … Few men intrigued so deeply in all matters connected with the Society of Antiquaries, and to oppose him was to seal your own doom … he did not care whose knocker he lifted or whose chamber he invaded, when an important election was going on; his whisper was about equal to three human voices at full stretch’Footnote 105 (the volume of Lysons’s voice was well known: Dance even said that the loudness of Lysons’s voice ‘oppressed’ himFootnote 106).
Samuel Lysons was the younger son of a respectable Gloucestershire family.Footnote 107 Sir Joseph Banks was very clearly a significant patron. Lysons wrote to Banks in August 1788 to tell him the details of King George iii’s visit to GloucestershireFootnote 108 in January 1794, and thank Banks for sending him a tent so that he might carry on his winter campaign at Woodchester Roman villa.Footnote 109 In September 1796 he wrote to tell Banks about his royal contacts at Weymouth, his showing the King his Woodchester portfolio and the military backing he had received for his excavations at Frampton Roman villa.Footnote 110
These royal contacts were due to Banks who, on the basis of the discoveries at Woodchester, had introduced him to the royal family in July 1796, his mosaic patterns being used by the Queen and Princesses as the basis for embroidery.Footnote 111 This introduction led to closer contacts with Princess Elizabeth, whom he advised and assisted with her collections of old china, being known to George iii as ‘the old tea-pot man’.Footnote 112 The useful outcome of these connections was that, in 1803, the Queen and Princess Elizabeth lobbied for his appointment as Keeper of Records in the Tower of London. This met with success in January 1804.Footnote 113
The governance of the society, 1812–20
After the Presidential election of 1812, Sir Joseph Banks might well have felt that the governance of the Antiquaries was as he wanted it. There were some further changes. As we have seen above there were good reasons why Lord Aberdeen did not have much time to attend to the affairs of the Society after his election on 23 April 1812. In his absence there are indications of a ‘power struggle’ in the Society, won by Samuel Lysons. On 30 April 1812 Lord Redesdale, as Vice-President in the chair, read out Aberdeen’s Vice-Presidential appointments: these included himself, Anthony Hamilton (who had contested the presidency on Council with Englefield) and Frederick Barnard, but not Samuel Lysons. Hamilton died in the early autumn, with Sir Joseph Banks in the chair announcing his death on 5 November. On 19 November 1812 Samuel Lysons was in the chair as Aberdeen’s choice as the replacement Vice-President for Hamilton. Lysons gave notice of the procedures for the election of a replacement member of Council, which Englefield publicly objected to, but the arrival of Lord Aberdeen in the chair the following week overcame this opposition.
From then on, Lysons seems to have played an increasingly prominent role in the Society until his death on 30 June 1819. He chaired a large number of Ordinary Meetings, sometimes more than the President or other Vice-Presidents (see Appendix 11).Footnote 114 He also played an active role on Council, often chairing the meetings in the absence of Lord Aberdeen.Footnote 115 So invaluable did he prove that when Lord Aberdeen announced Lysons’s death at the Ordinary Meeting of 4 November 1819, he gave an ‘elegant and impressive speech in which he deplored with great sensitivity the loss the Society had sustained by the death of their late excellent Vice-President’. If Banks wanted to exert a significant control over the Antiquaries, he would have been better able to do so through Samuel Lysons, even more so than through Lord Aberdeen.
Sir joseph banks: the final years
The last trace that we have of Sir Joseph Banks in the records of the Society was his re-election to Council on 24 April 1820. Before that he was last recorded as having introduced a guest on 7 July 1808, and he last signed proposals for new Fellows on 30 May 1816 (see Appendix 111). The last time that we can be sure he was present at an Ordinary Meeting was on 24 December 1818. In the minutes of the meeting of 23 March 1820, it is recorded that a letter from him was read. It needs to be remembered that he was suffering more and more from gout and had to be carried around in a wheelchair. Although he sought to resign as President of the Royal Society around 18 May 1820, his resignation was not accepted by the Council of the Royal Society and he died ‘in harness’ as President on 19 June.Footnote 116 As far as the Society of Antiquaries was concerned, Sir Joseph Banks just disappeared. There was no announcement of his death and no speech of lamentation from the chair.
Banks as ‘the villain’: a conclusion
Was Sir Joseph Banks ‘the villain’ in the affairs of the Society of Antiquaries, not only over the apartments at Somerset House but even more so over the series of contested presidential elections in 1785, 1799 and 1812? It is noteworthy that it is during the period when Banks was President of the Royal Society that the Antiquaries had these problems, which had not before, or since, occurred with such frequency, and it would seem that he did have a strong personal interest in these ‘faction’ fights. As we have seen, contemporary gossip thought that the ‘Royal’ was bent on taking over the ‘Antiquarian’. There is no firm evidence for this, and as the years passed, after the move to sharing premises at Somerset House, it must have retreated as a possibility. But this is not to rule out the idea that there might be a joint President of both Societies and it seems likely that – certainly up to 1799 – Banks had actively considered this at times.
It might be considered that these factional fights within the Society of Antiquaries are no more than the proverbial ‘storm in a teacup’, but they do have a wider significance. The history of the Society of Antiquaries has to be considered in the light of contemporary politics and events. The other two societies in receipt of the King’s patronage at Somerset House – the Royal Society and the Royal Academy – both experienced direct interference in their affairs by the monarch. Conversely, they also benefited significantly from gifts and grants. While they both had their power struggles, they were, in the end, run by ‘the King’s friends’. The Society of Antiquaries seems to have been in a different situation. Apart from the accommodation at Somerset House (admittedly a major item), they received very little in the way of gifts or grants from the King.Footnote 117 This could have been because neither George iii, nor the Prince of Wales, was interested in antiquities.Footnote 118 George iii’s interest in Gothick architecture was carried forward through Wyatt and, although he could have been aware of the publications of the Antiquaries on medieval art and architecture, there seems to have been no suggestion that Royal financial assistance might have been forthcoming for the survey of cathedrals.Footnote 119 And yet we have seen that, as with Samuel Lysons, properly presented, a useful relationship involving helpful patronage could be built up.
Is the relative lack of involvement or patronage by King George iii during this period related to the Presidency of Lord Leicester and his ‘faction’? Lord Leicester was no friend to the King and the Antiquaries managed publicly to humiliate the King’s architect, James Wyatt. The faction doing this – at the time presumably favoured by Leicester – involved a prominent Roman Catholic, Englefield, and also the Duke of Norfolk, who had proposed a toast to ‘the people’ in place of the Loyal and Royal toast at a public dinner. The King’s views may have been influenced by one of his close advisers on such matters, Sir Joseph Banks. It is speculation, but one wonders whether the Antiquaries would have been favoured more by the patronage of the King if the ‘Banks faction’ had won earlier, and whether the history of archaeology in this country would have been significantly different as a result. What is clear is that the 1812 regime-change at the Antiquaries was not the overture to greater things; it is generally accepted that the Society of Antiquaries stagnated for the next generation.Footnote 120
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful for the comments of Bernard Nurse, FSA, and the Journal’s other (anonymous) referee; I have tried to accommodate their observations and I hope that any continuing disagreements will be over matters of emphasis. I am also grateful to Adrian James and Ortrun Peyn for discussions about this paper and their assistance in the Library. Thanks also to Vincent Megaw, FSA, and Stephen Briggs, FSA, who continue to have the power to provoke, and David Starkey, FSA, whose comments in discussion show what a continuing loss he is to eighteenth-century antiquarian studies. Thanks also to Sheena Evans for her support in trying to keep an archaeologist on the straight and narrow path.
APPENDICES
The appendices referred to in the text are published in the online version of this paper at 〈http://journals.cambridge.org/ant〉 and are as follows:
Appendix i: Guests of Sir Joseph Banks at meetings of the Society of Antiquaries
Appendix ii: Fellows in the chair at Society and Council Meetings
Appendix iii: People proposed and supported by Banks for Ordinary and Honorary Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries
