 A oeddydd y 2 pien ar yr Unigodd November 10, 11 ar gyfer y Llyfrgellau Llauedd drwy'n Gŵr. Byddai'n dysgu'r ffordd o'r ysgol o'r ddeud o'r ffordd o'r Llyfrgellau Llauedd drwy'n Gŵr, a'r ddoddod o'r perthyniad o'r ffordd o'r Llyfrgellau Llauedd drwy'n Gŵr, ac yna, yn ddiddordeb o'r ddiddorol, roedd yn bod yn ddiddorol o'r ddiddorol sy'n ddiddorol. Am golygu ddiddordeb hynny oherwydd mae'n gyrwch yn ystod y bod nhw'n gweithio rhai yn blaenau. Mae'n edrych yn gwneud o'n gweithio yma i gael ymlaen o'r Llywodraeth Cymru. Llywodraeth Cymru yn gweithio'r Llywodraeth Cymru yn 1688, yn ddim gweithio ar gyfer y Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Cymru. A oedd gennym ni'n gweithio'r rhai yn gweithio'r llyfr yn gweithio'r llyfr yn gweithio'r llyfr i'r llyfr. Johnstons hoped to replicate the dynamic coffee house gatherings he had enjoyed in London where he met Addison and Steele, editors of the Tatler and Spectator, and Alexander Pope. That his society flourished for 45 years in a provincial town in the Fenns might surprise the casual observer. In fact it still exists after the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest museum in the land. The Spaulding Gentlemen Society was from the start an outward looking group, part of an extensive reciprocal network of personal and institutional connections, not least with the society of the rooms we meet today. Furthermore we will see its provincial setting allowed it to flourish in ways itinerant metropolitan societies were not able to do. The Spaulding to which Johnstons returned from legal training in London as a young man in 1710 was a prosperous town of two and a half thousand people. Two markets each week brought people from the nearby towns of Boston and Stanford and the marketplace itself was and remains the location of the White Heart Inn, the greatest inn in the town. Like many ins in the 18th century the White Heart turned one of its rooms into a coffee house run by the proprietors wife Catherine Rishton, one of a number of women who make an impact on this otherwise male society. It was here that the SGS held its first formal meetings creating structure which included treasurer, secretary, president and leisure and operator who created the collection of instruments and encouraging its members to quote improvement in the liberal sciences and polite learning. The archival records of the early SGS kept in the present museum building since 1910 are an astonishing survival. Most significant are six volumes of illustrated minutes covering the first half of the 18th century and detailing discussions at weekly meetings, their links with other societies and books and objects that were presented. The earliest minutes which cover the winter of 1712 and 13 show the range of subjects in which the group was interested. Some were distinctly antiquarian, medieval methods of making paint, the origins of a medieval chapel near Spalding and monastic seals. Others point to their general curiosity including an account of a journey by local men to Bath and another of history of side-sabot writing. Sometimes we see practical learning before from fenn drainage which is a natural interest in literature. Two methods of taking impressions of coins and medals, an innovation key in the gentlemanly world of coin collecting. Thanks to Johnson's preservation of the society's institutional memory, the SGS archive acts today as a window upon the significant period of intellectual endeavor. These archives show the SGS to have been a pioneer among learning societies in the 18th century. It is by considering its connections with the Society of Antiquaries and the poor theatrical records that I have used here that I will show the SGS as an independent and dynamic institution. The SGS is often considered a kind of diminutive offshoot of the Society of Antiquaries. In a letter to Johnson in June 1718, his countryman William Stutley noted that one of the Gale brothers had referred to SGS meetings as, quote, a cell to the mitre. Of course that, as we've seen, is the Tavernong Fleet Street where the Antiquaries first met. The word cell appears again in the Antiquaries Minutebook for 14 November 1722, which refers to the SGS as, quote, a cell or subordinate to ours. The term cell, presumably deriving from the monastic sense of an institution dependent on some larger house, is frequently used by both societies. But in reality there was no sense of dependency, both the two were very closely tied, and of course the SGS concerned itself with a much wider range of subjects than the Antiquaries. The links between the two societies are very strong. The 23 men who were who founded the Society of Antiquaries in 1717, eight were already or would go on to become members of the SGS. And 15% or 61 of the nearly 400 individuals who were members of the SGS up to 1760 were also members here. Most were members of the London Society first, and then presumably encouraged by Johnson to join the SGS too. But several were members of the SGS to begin with. Among these were George Lynn Jr and William Bogdani, both of whom married members of Johnson's family, and were proposed by Johnson as members of the Antiquaries at the same meeting in November 1726. Johnson was especially close to William Stucley, the Antiquaries' first secretary, whom he introduced to the Society in June 1717, and whose full length portrait you may have seen on the stairs on the way up to the library. Born in Holm Beach, eight miles east of Spalding, Stucley lived in London during the early part of his career as a physician, and was a member of the SGS from 1722. In 1719, Johnson wrote to his friend of his desire to keep up his end of the scholarly pact, and he wrote, I shall ever be most ready to serve you in anything but petrally bearing you in mind. The SGS, in its pendulum setting, 20 miles from the nearest city and a two-day co-triad from London, looked at what's almost from the very beginning. From January 1713-14, it allowed the admission of 14 extra-regular members, as it called them, who would not pay regular fees, but instead would present books to the local church or grammar school libraries to the value of £1. By the end of the decade, the extra-regular members included a fellow at St John's College, Cambridge, William Clarke, and the Whizbeach physician Richard Middleton-Massie, who later moved to London and became a member of the Antiquaries in 1718. Later on, such great names as Anders Celsius, Hans Sloan, and even Isaac Newton would join the list of these corresponding members. Such members allowed the SGS to harness correspondence of those who lived far enough away from Spaulding that regular attendance of meetings was impossible. A letter from Massie upon his election in 1724 gives thanks to your honourable society for the honour you have done me, and promises the present of a mint plant for the society's garden. It goes on to mention, quote, my good friend Dr Tannen's piece. That's Thomas Tannen's revision of his 1695 meditia monastica, about which Johnson definitely asked. It is three years since I saw anything of it, said Massie, but if you can tell him where any ledgers or books of accounts of any religious houses are and in whose hands, I believe the addition will be of that sort. Massie's honourary membership at the SGS provided another route for Johnson on behalf of the SGS to keep his ear to the ground, formalising the private relationships that he already had. Indeed, Johnson did send some material to Tannen, which was included in the book, though the book itself took another 20 years to appear about 10 years after Tannen himself had died. The letters sent by corresponding members to Spaulding were a vital part for weekly meetings. By 1731, the society was in such good health that Johnson could write stucly that we're so strong as to have three or four letters at a time communicated from one member or others. Correspondence, he continued, is the thing that best keeps up the spirit of such societies. The novelty of a letter excites the curiosity of all who know the writer, besides there are usually some modern occurrences in De Woven. It was not just antiquarian or scientific information which introduced the men, but news of all sorts of modern occurrence and probably gossip too. Their society was multifaceted, both in its interests and in its structure. Such an outward-facing mindset, and I hope I'll be forgiven for saying this in these rooms, was not present at the early society of antiquaries, which focused very much on a narrow field of interest and looked inwards, focusing on the desires of those men who attended meetings, more a gentleman's club for showing off new acquisitions than the Society for Discovery and Learning, as it would later become when it began publishing numismatic monographs in the mid-1730s. Fellow of the antiquaries, I don't know, fellow of the antiquaries, Dr John Ward, spoke in 1755 of those early days, and he says that their more immediate object seems to have been rather their own entertainment and mutual about it arising from these conferences than any prospect which they could then have of communicating their researches to the public. Soon after the formal creation of the Society of Antiquaries in 1717, Johnson wished to have his brother John admit it. Among gets a sense that members were expected to hold their own and what was probably quite a boisterous society of men, some of them very eminent. For Johnson fears that his brother wouldn't really fit in, he wrote to Stuclie that quote, though he is in town with me, he is so very modest that I could never bring him along. One of the antiquaries more outward looking ventures was the production and sale of prints of antiquities and architectural scenes, but even this endeavour was more for the benefit of members who received copies for free than for public edification. John Talman, society's first director, wrote in March 1724-5 to the treasurer Samuel Gale, I'm pleased to hear that such persons as jukes by a whole set of our prints he wrote, but at the same time I should go in to reflect on the smallness of their number. As late as 1739 the Antiquaries debated the publishing prints of objects brought to meetings by members, suggesting that this internal focus was hard to shape off even 20 years on. It was also much less keen to widen its membership than the SGS. The Antiquaries reached 100 members in January 1737-8 and calls to increase the number in that year and in 1745 were rejected. Before in 1746 the number was raised to 120. It should be said that the SGS had a much smaller pool of potential regular members on which to draw than the Antiquaries and that was one of the chief reasons why I had these corresponding members. Certainly Roger Gale found a member and vice president of the Antiquaries, not seeing increasing numbers to be beneficial as he pointed out when he accepted Johnson's invitation to become an honorary member of the SGS in 1728. I'm sure ours here, i.e. the Antiquaries, is not advantaged by its numbers, he wrote, few will carry on any work better than a multitude and for the most part are only a club and a dead weight upon the industries. Calls of the Antiquaries in the mid-1720s to create honorary members were similarly rejected and the absence of a mechanism to deal with these members leaving London led to the departure of members from the society, including William Stuclie's brother who resigned in July 1721 when he went to live in the country. It was only in 1736 that, quote, foreigners of eminent note and learning were admitted on an honorary basis. Conversely, the SGS was keen to draw a knowledge from as far afield as possible and in its correspondence Johnson shows off his networks and shares with the Antiquaries the knowledge that they would not ordinarily be able to come by. One example is seen in the summer of 1743 when his son, also Morris, then on a military expedition in Germany sends back information and drawings of two funerary inscriptions he has found in the city of Worms. Johnson reads his son's account of these to the SGS in September that year and writes to Roger Gale to ask his opinion because the fragmentary nature of the inscriptions made the transcription and translation difficult. Gale replied at the end of October to say that it is strange that the inscriptions, quote, are placed so openly in a great city but have evaded notice by any of the great recorders of such things because he cannot find them in the Angaruta 1603 collection of Roman inscriptions, a book evidently not accessible to Johnson or, quote, any other of our collectors of inscriptions. This is noted that the next SGS meeting on 3 November when Johnson copies down Gale's transcription and records that, quote, his learned explanation much illustrates those ancient and very grand and elegant monuments which he thinks are related to Roman cavalry soldiers. This hiverto unrecorded inscription is clearly of interest to the antiquaries who asked Johnson for a copy to place in their register which is the book sitting on the table just here. And the drawing is annotated by Johnson, quote, as the Society of Antiquaries was pleased to desire it, I made this copy for them, the sort of act which would have incurred a debt of reciprocity. This episode underlines the collaborative nature of antiquarianism and the importance of sharing evidence, especially images, a subject Johnson raised a few years later with William Stukeley. Nothing is more edifying and pleasant than ingenious accounts of ancient monuments so illustrated by sketches or drafts of them. They save many words and make stronger and more adequate impressions than words alone can. Correspondence between individuals was from 1737 supplemented by a formal link between Spaulding and the Antiquaries when Johnson began the quarterly exchange of minutes with this Society and the Royal Society. Johnson's letter to Alexander Gordon, who was the secretary here, establishing this arrangement in August 1737 contained much of interest. And there's lots here so I'm not going to really doubt if I've highlighted the key points. And we see Johnson flattering Gordon's communicative generous spirit and laying bare the honour he feels in their acquaintance before going on to underline his own personal connection to the Antiquaries as one of the restorers of that set of company whose rules he'd helped to form. His desire to communicate formally with the Antiquaries is not presented as a selfish one, but one inspired by the request of the Royal Society to do the same. He offers the humble service of all our society in Spaulding and his own to our friends at the Meiter. In these words, Johnson presents this new venture not as an imposition from outside, but a mutually beneficial one to which, as a founder member of the Antiquaries, he is entitled. The personal connection between society secretaries is also seen in the way Johnson usually signs off his letters as your loving brother secretary. Networks of correspondence were key when the SGS wanted to bring Spaulding and Lincolnshire more broadly to the basis of the Society of Antiquaries. It was, of course, natural for the SGS to take a special interest in the literary, archaeological and architectural antiquities of a local area. Indeed, that connection to places central, objects are frequently retrieved from the River Welland, which Runster is called in, or from the site of Spaulding's medieval priory, tying them very much to the history of the town. But it would appear from what Johnson thinks worthy of sending to the Antiquaries that this local evidence was used to bring Johnson's part of the world before in the minds of Antiquaries members. Further still, local evidence was used to connect Spaulding with the national history. One such example shows the range of networks in use and concerns the coat of arms on the vicarage door in Boston Church. Boston is the largest settlement in that part of the world. The SGS discussed this on the 7th of October, 1736, and the account is accompanied in the minutes by drawing of the arms. The group had a loss to identify them. Six months later, on the 7th of April, 1737, the subject is raised again. We see nearly a full paint of information in pursuit of their identity, including this more detailed drawing and a discussion of its symbols, references to printed books which might identify them, and a discussion of the Church's connection to the priors of St John of Jerusalem, which Johnson believes is their origin. As he often did, Johnson takes the subject up with Roger Gale, an example of Johnson using his informal correspondence network to answer an SGS inquiry, whose findings are related back to the Antiquaries in his selection of minutes. That learned gentleman, that's Gale, seems to think that the coat of arms carved on the vicarage door belongs to the Abbey of Barbney in this county. Pray ask our friend Mr New, and let me know whose arms they are taken to be, either of him or any heraldical member of the Antiquaries. In this example, sporting is connected to the nation's monastic heritage by the study of arms, and the SGS's connection with Roger Gale, a founder member like Johnson of the Society of Antiquaries, is made clear. The SGS frequently engages the assistance of their brethren at the mitre, and here we see Johnson throwing out the inquiry, accompanied by a detailed description to his colleagues in London. As I come towards my own conclusion, we find Johnson too winding down and considering the future of his society's connections with London, he appears not to have attended the Antiquaries after 1746, finding the two-day journey to taxing, though he continued to send updates on SGS progress. In March 1749, his subvolta was admitted here, prompting Johnson to write to the President Martin Folks, the only individual ever to have been president of this society and the Royal Society, who watches us from the dark behind the screen on the right. He noted that, quote, no other father has wished the continuance of his family in a set of company where he himself had taken so much delight. In 1754, Johnson, now one of the most senior surviving members of the Antiquaries, received a letter from the Hugeno Antiquary and fellow Andrew Ducarrol, asking for information on the origins of his society. Ducarrol was most deferential, noting that, quote, nobody can have greater regard for the learned society of Antiquaries than yourself, and asking Johnson to oblige our learned and flourishing society. He was, of course, only two peas to help. A year later in 1755, Johnson was dead, and the Antiquaries recorded, quote, the loss of so valuable a member. Stupid iteration on his friend underlined the importance of Johnson's and his society's work in his native town and county, which was, quote, forever obliged to his care and diligence, who has rescued them from oblivion. But Johnson and his folding society had done much to aid the work of the Antiquaries, too, copying images from the folding minute books for the Antiquaries' own records, helping to ensure that the early history of this society was properly recorded, and sharing new discoveries gleaned through its extensive reciprocal network of personal and institutional connections.