Lunar Society of Birmingham - Development - Heyday of The Society 1780-1789

Heyday of The Society 1780-1789

In late 1780 the nature of the society was to change again with the move to Birmingham of Joseph Priestley. Priestley had been closely associated with the group's activities for over a decade and was a strong advocate of the benefits of scientific societies. Shortly after his arrival Lunar meetings moved from Sunday afternoons to Mondays to accommodate Priestley's duties as a clergyman, while the society's dependence on Matthew Boulton was lessened by holding meetings at other members' houses in addition to Soho House. The result was to be the society's most productive era.

Several other major new figures became associated with the society during this period. Samuel Galton, Jr., unusual as a Quaker who was also a gun-manufacturer, appears in the letters of other Lunar members as attending meetings from July 1781, and his daughter Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck was to provide one of the few first-hand accounts of the Lunar Society's activities. The botanist and physician Jonathan Stokes, who had known William Withering as a child, moved to Stourbridge and started attending Lunar Society meetings from 1783. His contribution to the society was significant but short-lived: after collaborating with Withering on his Botanical Arrangement of British Plants the two quarrelled bitterly and Stokes severed his relations with the main Lunar members by 1788.

The society also lost several major figures over the period: Richard Lovell Edgeworth ceased regular involvement in the society's activities when he returned to Ireland in 1782, John Whitehurst died in London in 1788, and Thomas Day died the following year. Most significantly, Erasmus Darwin moved to Derby in 1781, but although he complained of being "cut off from the milk of science", he continued to attend Lunar Society meetings at least until 1788.