Royal Society of Edinburgh
 |
The Royal Society of Edinburgh's Building on the corner of George St. and Hannover St. |
The
Royal Society of Edinburgh is
Scotland's
national academy of science and letters. The membership consists of over 1300 peer-elected fellows. It provides annual grants totalling over half a million pounds for research and entrepeneurship. The Society organises public lectures and promotes the sciences in schools throughout
Scotland.
It covers a broader selection of fields than the affiliated
Royal Society of London including
literature and
history.
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, denoted by the use of the
acronym FRSE in official titles, have included:
*
Alexander Aitken, New Zealand mathematician
*
Jack Allen, Canadian physicist who helped discover the
superfluid phase of matter in 1937 using
liquid helium, Professor of Physics at the
University of St Andrews*Sir
William Eric Kinloch Anderson,
Provost of
Eton College*
John Arbuthnott, 16th Viscount of Arbuthnott, Scottish soldier and businessman
*
Struther Arnott, Scottish
molecular biologist and Vice-chancellor of the
University of St Andrews*Sir
James W. Black, Scottish
pharmacologist who invented
Propranolol, synthesised
Cimetidine, and received the
Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988
*
Robert Black,
Queen's Counsel, Professor of
Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh
*
Norman Borlaug, American
agricultural scientist, winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, father of the
Green Revolution*
Sarah Broadie, philosopher specialising in
metaphysics and
ethics, Professor of
Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
*
John Campbell Brown,
Astronomer Royal for Scotland,
Regius Professor of
Astronomy at the
University of Glasgow*Sir
Kenneth Calman, Scottish doctor,
Chief Medical Officer for Scotland then
England, Vice-chancellor of
Durham University*
Roger Cowley*
Cyril Offord*
Tom Devine*
Kenneth Dover*
James Alfred Ewing, Scottish physicist and engineer, discoverer of
hysteresis, Vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh
*
Ian Fells*
John Fincham*
James David Forbes*
Alexander Gray, Scottish economist, translator and poet, Professor of
Political Economy at the
University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh
*
William Michael Herbert Greaves*
John Currie Gunn*
Peter Higgs*Right Reverend
Richard Holloway, writer, broadcaster,
Bishop of Edinburgh in the
Scottish Episcopal Church*
John Mackintosh Howie*
John Jamieson*
Fleeming Jenkin*
Mstislav Keldysh*
Cargill Gilston Knott*
Brian Lang, Scottish
anthropologist, Vice-chancellor of the University of St Andrews
*
Chris J. Leaver, Professor of
Plant Sciences at the
University of Oxford*Sir
Neil MacCormick,
Regius Professor of
Public Law at the
University of Edinburgh and Vice-president of the
Scottish National Party*
Neil Mackie, Scottish
tenor, Head of Vocal Studies at the
Royal College of Music*
Aubrey Manning, English
zoologist and broadcaster, Professor of
Natural History at the University of Edinburgh
*
James Napier, Scottish writer
*
John Playfair, Scottish mathematician and physicist, Professor of
Mathematics and the
Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh
*
Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair*
Juda Hirsch Quastel*
John Randall, physicist
*
Richard Sillitto*
Muir Russell*Sir
Walter Scott,
romantic and
historical novelist (
Ivanhoe,
Rob Roy,
The Lady of the Lake,
Waverley,
The Heart of Midlothian and others)
*
John Sinclair, writer
*
Adam Smith,
classical economist; philosopher of the
Scottish Enlightenment*
Alexander McCall Smith, Rhodesia-born Scottish novelist (
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,
Portuguese Irregular Verbs,
The Sunday Philosophy Club,
44 Scotland Street and others), Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh
*
Christopher Smout*
Peter Guthrie Tait*
George Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth,
Labour Party minister and
European Commissioner*
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish-Scottish
mathematical physicist and engineer
*
Colin Vincent*
Conrad Hal Waddington*
James Watt, Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the
steam engine were fundamental to the
Industrial Revolution*
Charles W. J. Withers*
Ronald Selby Wright*
Hideki Yukawa,
Japanese
theoretical physicist who predicted the
pion and
K-capture, the first Japanese to win a
Nobel PrizeAt the start of the eighteenth century,
Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies. Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the
Philosophical Society which was founded in
1738. With the help of
University of Edinburgh professors like
Joseph Black,
William Cullen and
John Walker, this society transformed itself into the Royal Society of Edinburgh in
1783 and in
1786 it issued the first edition of its new journal
Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
As the end of the century drew near, the younger members like Sir
James Hall embraced
Lavoisier's new nomenclature and the members split over the practical and theoretical objectives of the society. This resulted in the founding of the
Wernerian Society (
1808-
1858), a parallel organisation that focused more upon natural history and scientific research that could be used to improve Scotland's weak agricultural and industrial base. Under the leadership of Prof.
Robert Jameson, the Wernerians first founded
Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society (
1808-
1821) and then the
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal (
1822), thereby diverting the output of the Royal Society's Transactions. Thus, for the first four decades of the nineteenth century, the RSE's members published brilliant articles in two different journals. By the
1850s, Jameson and his partner Sir
David Brewster lost their influence and the society once again could unify its membership under one journal.
During the
nineteenth century the society produced many scientists whose ideas laid the foundation of the modern sciences. From the
twentieth century onward, the society functioned not only as focal point for Scotland's eminent scientists, but also the arts and humanities. It still exists today and continues to promote original research in Scotland.The current president is the mathematician
Michael Francis Atiyah.
*
Keith Medal*
Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize*
Royal Society of Edinburgh Website*
MacTutor: Royal Society of Edinburgh'*
Notes on the Royal Society of Edinburgh from the Scholarly Societies project, University of Waterloo Library (includes information on the journals of the society)
