The Royal Society for the Advancement of the Sciences

The Royal Society starts in an informal manner with the constitution of several groups such as the “ Invisible college ” in London and that of Oxford, whose members meet periodically, from 1645, to discuss scientific topics. Under the Restoration, these groups to which are added small Academies from several regions of England, are united and in 1662 receive the official denomination of The Royal Society for the Advancement of the Sciences. Composed largely of puritains sympathisers and adherents to the doctrine of Francis Bacon, the only Royal status of this Society is the moral support of the monarch. Indeed, although he doesn't spurn the sciences, Charles II does not bestow upon it any financial support, in contrast to the Academies that bloom in France at the same period and that are established with the resolve and subsidies of the state. Thus in a way, the Royal Society guarantees the total independence of its members. It includes among its founders the mathematician John Wallis, the philosopher Joseph Granvill, the inventor of the microscope Robert Hooke, and the architect Christopher Wren, who draws up its charter.
Its characteristic freedom of speech gives a galvanising impulse to scientific thought, so that in the following century its reputation is truly international. It is thus one of the first to publish a journal, from 1665, entitle Philosophical Transactions and it soon includes men as brilliant as Isaac Newton in 1671 and the astronomer Edmond Halley in 1678. This Royal Society illustrates well the profound development that England undergoes during the 17th century, whereas the whole of Europe believes her to be marginal. It institutes the structures and trains of thought that ensure its leading position in the scientific world for centuries to come. Thus it will be the sponsor of the scientific expedition of Thomas Cook to the Pacific at the end of the 18th century and again will underwrite an expedition at the beginning of the 19th century to photograph a solar eclipse in the Gulf of Guinea. Ultimately this expedition will allow Albert Einstein to verify the theories of relativity that would make him unquestionably famous.