IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0117 JBC
Held at: Royal Society
Title: Journal Book Copy
Date(s): 1660-1826
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 43 volumes
Name of creator(s): Royal Society
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
The Journal Book Copy was transcribed retrospectively in the early eighteenth century, and then regularly to the early nineteenth century, for the purpose of greater security.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
The Journal Books exist in Original and Copy versions. They contain minutes of the ordinary meetings of the Royal Society, setting out the following information; person in the chair, news of elections to the Fellowship and the Council, non-Fellows given leave to be present, and books and rarities presented to the Society. Letters and Papers read before the Society are given in abstract with any subsequent discussion By the nineteenth century much of this earlier detail had been lost, so that, for example, only titles of papers are recorded. This copy version is a transcription of the Journal Book Original.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
By date
Conditions governing access:
Open
Conditions governing reproduction:
No publication without written permission. Apply to Archivist in the first instance.
Physical characteristics:
Leather bound volumes
Finding aids:
Name index on cards by Jennifer Bray for Volumes 7-9.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
The Secretaries minutes of meetings (MSG/557-574, 18 volumes, 1662-1761) and rough minutes (MSG/575-579, 1685-1711 and MSG/799, 1776-1778, one box) were written up to form the Journal Books. The Journal Books (and Council Minutes) for the period 1660-1687 were printed by Thomas Birch in the 'History of the Royal Society' (London, 1756-1757). An index to the proper names in Birch by G.E. Scala was published in 'Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London' Volume 28, No. 2 (1974). The Journal Book Original is available on microfilm from University Publications of America.
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Copied from the Royal Society catalogue by Sarah Drewery.
Rules or conventions: General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.
Date(s) of descriptions: Feb 2009.