 As Mercury crossed the sun on the 9th of November 1802, 22 citizens of Glasgow met in the Prince of Wales Tavern in Brunswick Street to establish a society for the discussion of subjects connected solely with the arts and sciences. This was the first meeting of Glasgow's Royal Philosophical Society. The 19th century was a period of great scientific and cultural achievement in Scotland, an era of enlightenment, prosperity and influence throughout the world fuelled by the work of visionaries like Robert Burns, Adam Smith and James Watt. And at its heart was Glasgow. As the second city of the British Empire, Glasgow was one of the richest and finest cities of Europe, right at the cutting edge of the Industrial Revolution. It was at the forefront of everything, wasn't it? It became the second city of the Empire. It was on a river which led to the shipbuilding industry. It led to dredging, the introduction of railways in Scotland. Glasgow has always been a chancer, I think. It's just always pushed the boat, it's broken the rules. It's always just shot for the stars, actually. It's been a brave city and it kind of suffered the knocks of doing that, but it makes it more human, I think. As a city of great innovation and achievement, it was only natural that Glasgow attracted a wealth of enlightened minds who wanted to learn and collaborate and foster the changes of tomorrow. It was in this light that the Philosophical Society of Glasgow was formed. One of the first ways in Glasgow for people to share knowledge and all manner of subjects was through the Royal Philosophical Society. It's called the Philosophical Society, but it means philosophy in the broadest possible sense. It's not focused on moral philosophy or philosophy in particular. It's about thinking and thinking about interesting things. It was more of a learned society. It was sort of one expert in one discipline discussing things with another. The first members of the society were tradespeople, medics, architects and academics. Within ten years of its inception, the society listed over 100 paid-up members. You get the idea of Glasgow in particular. It's about the people who have actually been at their factory coming along and saying, this is how we can do this. It was as if you're there every single time learning about a brand new invention. The 1800s was a century of huge upheaval in science and engineering and sociology, in public health and world politics. And throughout it all, the society kept pace and the hunger for learned discourse grew ever more popular. The society organised talks, discussions and exhibitions to promote the dissemination of new knowledge. As the society progressed, it started to engage the public and to provide not just a forum for experts to exchange ideas with each other but to get those ideas out to a wider community and to engage the public in thinking. With the approach of its centenary year in 1902, a Royal Charter was granted in recognition of the society as an institution of great influence. And henceforth, it became the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow. Well, many prominent people have given lectures to the society. These range through artists, poets, economists, politicians. Harold Macmillan, for example. Amongst its presidents, there have been many prominent people. Probably one of the most notable is Lord Kelvin. As the society grew, it also had honorary members. Rutherford, Einstein. Society covered electricity. It covered the Forth and Clyde Canal. It covered the bringing of water to Glasgow. It covered developments in public health, in sanitation. All of these things are recorded in the archives and in the proceedings of the society. I think it's a treasure trove of information. I was astonished at the quality of the lectures. You know, 200 years of information that people perhaps don't know much about. The minutes and the published proceedings revealed the depth and quality of the society's varied topics and its commitment to preserving these gems for the benefit of our modern eyes. Slave hunting in Africa, 28th of March, 1883. Look at this, the slave map of equatorial Africa. Talks on blood serum, Antarctic minerals, charcoal. Yeah. Experiments with manures on oats. There's another one. Manures on potato. There were five separate talks mentioning the comparative value of manures. Five. Marriage is good for your health. Or is it? Or is it? I've come to this. What do you think this is, Pat? Look. More and more. And more sound and speech waves are revealed by the phonograph. Of course you've got phonographs starting to enable people to record things. But what I think is so beautiful is to put all that in, carefully constatine it in, you know. The society's lectures have continued to modern times and modern speakers, who carry on the founders' interest in not only speaking on important subjects, but also using this platform to inspire and enact change. What we have come to realise with public health is that we can create well-being within ourselves. If you look at the pattern of ill health across society, you see that a lot of it comes down to their experience in early life. Do they feel in control of their lives? And if so, they're much more likely to be healthy. My lecture was about the ability to feel in control, the ability to make appropriate choices, and the methods by which we can make that happen. And then here's an interesting one. On printing for the blind. Oh, look, there's bits of braille. Oh, my goodness. Do you feel that? It's not actually braille. So you have to learn the outline of the word. You do. You need to know the letter and then feel it with your finger. Perhaps braille hasn't been invented then. Other speakers use their platform to spread knowledge and understanding on current events, such as the disastrous fires that ravaged Macintosh's famous Glasgow School of Art. That was a very hard lecture to give. Probably still slightly in shock, I think, more than anything else. It had happened just after the second fire. It had been so severe that actually nothing had survived other than the stone walls, the brick spine walls. So we had to move extremely quickly to actually save the building. The fact that we did all the work that we did after the 214 fire meant there's a huge wealth of information. So the trick is going to be to dive into that and to make sense of it. What we need to bring to bear with that, before that, is the best minds, the best designers, a new Charles Rennie Macintosh. I don't know who that is. It'd be great if it was a woman. It's a much more holistic process, I think, when you read these lectures, because the city itself was creating and making and running the building and they knew every part of that. These people are immersed in how to make architecture, not just make a building, but how to create architecture. This one, a Torquan Glasgow Cathedral by Mr. Watson. And here's a picture's look of the illustration of Mr. Watson's paper on the cathedral and beautiful drawings. And there's also photographs. It's clear that Glasgow is a very, very proud city in terms of its city fathers. The generosity or the magnificence of those city fathers, putting that back into the structure, the adornment of the structure of the city in the 19th century was phenomenal. You know, we had a city would stand parity with anywhere in Europe, I think, in its day. Glasgow's advancements across public health, architecture and many other areas helped to achieve international renown. And there was no area that defined Glasgow's successes more than in the field of engineering. It meant civilization, progress, a job, money coming in the door. It meant advances in so many things. The second city of the empire, major shipbuilding centre, major railway centre, the introduction of the park, water supply in the mid-1800s from La Caterin that improved the health of the city no end. You know, the idea that you would go out to La Caterin and build a huge pipeline and bring it into Glasgow, that must have seemed a bit weird to some folk at the time but it was what was necessary. And you can see from the lectures of the society that it was discussed and its impact evaluated. The Philosophical Society has addressed these sort of issues and it's an important place where people can come together and find out more about it and we can create a movement that begins on the basis of science and deeper understanding of the issues. 1896 was the first woman's lecture and it was by a wonderful woman called Margaret Irwin who went on to campaign for the establishment of a trade union congress, one of the first suffragettes in Scotland and she's given this great lecture and it's buried in our proceedings. For all of the society's enlightened thinking they were still, inevitably, of their time when it came to their consideration of women. The society originally did not have any female members, that's not surprising, intellectual pursuits when the society was founded where a male endeavour. But it was during the First World War that women moved into occupations originally held by men and their value to society became recognised. And they reformed their constitution to remove the word a society for learned men and to say it was for persons but they didn't really think persons included women originally and it wasn't until about 1928 that they decided okay, persons can include women and the first female members were admitted to the society in 1932. I think probably one of the reasons why the society has persisted is because it does embrace change, change in attitudes, change in the sphere it covers, change in who its members are. It stayed broad, it wasn't narrow and it's remained like that. The society nowadays it's moved away from being discipline focused. It now covers a massive range of topics from history to science to architecture to engineering to health. If it was just, you know, contemplating its navel then everyone would just turn away from it but it's challenging the outside world in a positive way and it's got to keep on doing that. This year the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow celebrates its 220th anniversary. Over two centuries of unbroken commitment to sharing knowledge and unpacking the complexity of the modern world at every stage of the society's existence. It's wonderful for a society like this to look back on its history to think we've been here continuously for 220 years and it's persisted because it's never been an elite group even from its very beginnings. It always encouraged diverse people, tradesmen, scientists, artists, manufacturers and it of course still wants to be that kind of broad church of interesting and interested people. For young and old, a society like ours is where you can come and get information that's reliable but you can also put questions, you can challenge the speaker and you get your mind broadened, your perspectives broadened. I think the real nice feature about being a member of a society like this is that you end up going to things that you wouldn't normally think of going to. So even as a complete non-expert when you go in there you kind of suddenly realize it's a really interesting topic. You meet lots of people from very diverse walks of life who are fellow members and I get challenged with completely new things that I wouldn't think about like this one on tonight which is about opera which I wouldn't necessarily think I'm going to go to a lecture on opera but there I'll be. As general director of Scottish Opera I think it's my role and my duty to speak as widely and as loudly as I possibly can about opera. The overarching theme for my talk this evening is about the resilience of the art form. Here we are now in the third decade of the 21st century. There's been a positive explosion of opera in form and content. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdown throwing the future of the society into doubt. When the pandemic came, as with everything else you had to rethink what was going to happen to the society. You know, did we just stop or did we engage with modern technologies? Meetings were hosted over Zoom video calls and the easing of lockdown restrictions enabled the society to embrace modern technology by having lectures live streamed on the internet. Allows us to have hybrid lectures, so an audience at home but also a live audience in the auditorium and as we start to come out of the pandemic that live audience can grow bigger. The new technologies are really important. That widening of impact, you know, it means you can engage more and more people can be engaged. Yeah, I'd say it's very accessible. You don't need to be an academic. You can be a member of the public. I think it's important to get exposure to topics that are outside of our discipline because it's far too common for us just to sort of become very narrow and very focused and it's nice to hear about everything else that's going on. Arts, law, sciences, politics, it's such an eclectic mix. I found nothing but sort of a welcome environment. People are often excited just as you are to hear why we're here and what interests us. I think it's amazing that the RPSG has survived 220 years. When I look how hard Scottish shoppers had to work to get to nearly 60 then I'm full of awe and admiration. She asked what a commitment it's been and a sense of duty must have sat at the heart of everyone who's played a role in this organisation. I'm really happy to be a very, very small part of it in that 21st century. With an ever-growing lineup of renowned speakers and trips to meet up with kindred historical societies such as the Philosophical Society of Yorkshire the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow continues to flourish and promote knowledge, discourse and fellowship into its 220th year and beyond. Being the president of a society like this with such a long and illustrious history is a great honour. It's persisted for 220 years. It will continue to be looking ahead as it has always done. There is still a thirst for knowledge. The society exists for its members and without members then we're nothing.