The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, England. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting. The members cheerfully referred to themselves as "lunarticks", a pun on lunatics. Venues included Erasmus Darwin's home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, and Great Barr Hall.
Read more about Lunar Society Of Birmingham: Membership and Status, Modern Lunar Societies
Famous quotes containing the words lunar and/or society:
“A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)