History
The Society was created in 1924 in London as an offshoot of a Theosophical Lodge by Christmas Humphreys, a British judge and convert to Buddhism. It became an independent body in 1926 and Humphreys remained its president until his death in 1983. In 1961 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama became patron of the Society, the first organisation in the West to be so honoured. The Buddhist Society was one of the first Buddhist organisations outside Asia and remains one of the oldest in Europe to date.
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