Earlier Notable Members
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 (whose Windsor Forest was read in manuscript
to the Society), George Vertue (engraver), Dr. William Stukeley, John Anstis F.R.S. Garter
King of Arms, John Gay (poet), the Revd. Richard Bentley D.D., Capt. John Perry (engineer),
Samuel Wesley, Sir Edward Bellamy (Lord Mayor of London 1735) and Lord Coleraine (President of
the Society of Antiquaries). Later, long after the founder's death, we find as members Sir
Joseph Banks, Sir G. Gilbert Scott, Lord Tennyson, Pishey Thompson (historian of Boston), Lord
Curzon of Kedleston (who restored Tattershall Castle and bequeathed it to the National Trust),
Lord Peckover of Wisbech and Lord Ancaster (the Society's Patron from 1960 to 1983).