The Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh was a learned society based in Edinburgh, Scotland "for the cultivation of the physical sciences".
The society was founded in 1771 as the Physico-Chirurgical Society but soon after changed its name to the Physical Society. After being granted a Royal Charter in 1778 it became the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh.
It absorbed a number of other societies over the next fifty years, including the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1782 (not to be confused with the extant Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, founded in 1821), the American Physical Society in 1796 (not to be confused with the extant American Physical Society, founded in 1899), the Hibernian Medical Society in 1799, the Chemical Society in 1803, the Natural History Society in 1812 and the Didactic Society in 1813.
The society occupied a lecture hall in Nicholson Street, Edinburgh, complete with library. From 1854 to 1965, it published the journal Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, devoted to articles on experimental biology and natural history.
Members of the society were known as Fellows and permitted to use the post-nominal letters FRPSE. Presidents were elected at intervals, sometimes more than one for each year.
Some of the records of the Society, for the period 1828–1884, are maintained by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
Presidents of the Society Source:In 1880 (Proceedings, p.16) John Duns identified the following former presidents: "Captain Thomas Brown, Edward Forbes, Robert Kaye Greville, James Y. Simpson, John Coldstream, George Wilson, John Goodsir, Hugh Miller, Sir John Grahame (sic) Dalyell, John Fleming, Thomas Strethill Wright, and others".
1776–77 John Grieve 1813 John Roche 18nn Henry von Heydeloff 1828 Richard Tuite c.1837 William B. Carpenter 1840 Edward Forbes 1846–48 Robert Halliday Gunning 1851–54 Hugh Miller 1856 Robert Chambers 1858–59 Andrew Murray 1858–59 Professor Balfour 1861–64 James McBain 1861 William Rhind 1862 Thomas Strethill Wright 1863 Alexander Bryson 1863–66 Sir William Turner 1864 David Page 1865–68 Stevenson Macadam 1866–68 John Duns 1870–73 Robert Brown 1874–77 David Grieve 1876 John Alexander Smith 1876–79 Ramsay Heatley Traquair 1880 John Duns 1881–84 Ramsay Heatley Traquair 1885–88 Sir William Turner 1888–91 Ramsay Heatley Traquair 1895 John Struthers 1906–09 John Graham Kerr 1909?–1912 J Arthur Thomson 1912–15 Orlando Charnock Bradley 1916 Professor Arthur Robinson 1918–21 James Hartley Ashworth 1921–24 Professor D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 1933–36 Charles Henry O'Donoghue
References