The Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, one of the oldest learned Societies in the kingdom, and the earliest provincial association for the encouragement of archaeology, was founded by Maurice Johnson, (1688-1755), ‘The Antiquary’, of Ayscoughfee Hall, Spalding.
It began with a series of informal meetings of a few local gentlemen at a coffee-house in the Abbey Yard, Spalding, in 1710 to discuss local antiquities and to read ‘The Tatler’, a newly published London periodical. In 1712, it was decided to place the meetings on a more permanent footing, and proposals were issued for the establishing of a ‘Society of Gentlemen, for the supporting of mutual benevolence, and their improvement in the liberal sciences and in polite learning’. In that year formal meetings began with the appointment of officers and the keeping of minutes. The founder, Maurice Johnson, also played a leading part in refounding the Society of Antiquaries of London, and for some years an exchange of minutes took place. Francis, Duke of Buccleuch, (1695-1751), Lord of the Manor of Spalding-cum-Membris, became Patron of the Society in 1732.
Early members included a number of notable eighteenth century figures, among them Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society, whose museum and library formed the nucleus of the British Museum, Alexander Pope, George Vertue, the engraver, Dr. William Stukeley, John Anstis, F.R.S. Garter King of Arms, John Gay, the poet, the Rev. Richard Bentley, D.D., and Captain John Perry, the engineer. Later, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir G. Gilbert Scott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Pishey Thompson, the historian of Boston, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Lord Peckover of Wisbech, and Lord Ancaster, the Society’s Patron from 1960 to 1983.
