The Royal Society of NSW

The Royal Society of NSW Profile and History

The Royal Society of New South Wales, Australia traces its origins to the Philosophical Society of Australasia, established on 27 June 1821 and was the first scientific society in the then British Colony of New South Wales. The Society was formed by Dr James Bowman, Dr Henry Douglass, both medical practitioners, Judge Barron Field, a justice of the Supreme Court, Major Frederick Goulburn, the Colo nial Secretary, Captain Francis Irvine, an Army officer and farmer, and Edward Wollstonecraft, a merchant, "with a view to enquiring into the various branches of physical science of this vast continent and its adjacent regions". On his arrival in Sydney late in 1821 the newly-appointed Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was offered and accepted the position of President. Following a period of informal activity, with the encouragement of Dr Douglass, the Society was revitalised and renamed the Australian Philosophical Society on 19 January 1850. In 1855, the year of the establishment of the Parliament of NSW, the Society was renamed The Philosophical Society of New South Wales.