The Royal Society was founded by 12 men in London in 1660

The Royal Society was founded in London on 28 November 1660, when twelve men meeting after a lecture by Christopher Wren, then Gresham Professor of Astronomy, resolved to form a permanent society “for the promotion of Physico-Mathematicall Experimental Learning.” It is one of the oldest scientific academies still in existence.

None of the founders was a scientist in the modern sense. Early Fellows were lawyers, merchants, physicians, aristocrats and landowners, all of them men, who met weekly at Gresham College in the City of London and paid for the enterprise through their own subscriptions. Among the founders was Robert Boyle, of the gas law. The plan was practical: gather reports by correspondence, observe nature, run experiments, discuss the results and publish them.

What happened next

• 1662: A royal charter from Charles II gives the Society its motto, Nullius in verba (“take nobody’s word for it”); by then Henry Oldenburg is Secretary and Robert Hooke Curator of Experiments.
• 1665: Oldenburg launches Philosophical Transactions; Hooke publishes Micrographia.
• 1672: Isaac Newton is a Fellow; his Principia (1687) appears under the Society’s imprimatur.
• 1731: The first Copley Medal, the earliest prize for scientific excellence, goes to Stephen Gray.
• 1832: Formal refereeing of papers begins.
• 1945: Women are admitted as Fellows for the first time, led by Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson.

That last date is the one most summaries skip. For its first 285 years the Society kept its Fellowship closed to women, even while it gave research grants to women scientists and occasionally published their work.