Contexts -- Societies -- Birmingham Lunar Society
The Lunar Society, an informal group of fourteen men in
Birmingham, was instrumental in discovering practical
applications for the more abstract science carried on in the
eighteenth century. The group -- including Matthew Boulton, the
potter Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, and James Watt
-- met monthly, on the Monday nearest the full moon, giving them
their name. Most members were religious dissenters and political radicals, not at all uncommon
among late eighteenth-century scientific societies.
The Lunar Society's members were most concerned with the
practical and commercial advantages of scientific developments,
but their interests were wide-ranging, including ballooning,
chemistry, and standardizing weights and measures. By 1790 the group had
dissolved, although their determination to combine commercial
with scientific instruments was an important harbinger of the
Industrial Revolution.
