A society founded in Cambridge in 1819 as ‘a corresponding society for the purpose of introducing subjects of natural history to the Cambridge students’, chartered in 1832, when it adopted by-laws based on those of the Royal Society. Still a prestigious society frequented by (mostly senior) members of the university in the natural sciences and mathematics. For a brief account see Dr R. C. Evans, ‘The Cambridge Philosophical Society’, Cambridge 11 (1982), pp. 30-40, and for a fuller one A. Rupert Hall, The Cambridge Philosophical Society: a history, 1819-1969 (Cambridge, the Society, 1969).
