The Archive
The Society has met, by its own count, 4,194 times since its foundation. The Curator, Mr Plumptre (FPS, Hon.), is engaged in the digitisation of the minutes. He notes that the project, begun in 2009, is now in its eighteenth year, and that he expects to complete it. Fellows may consult the few minutes thus far transcribed below; for the rest, the Society regrets that the originals must be inspected in person, by appointment, in Hammersmith, on a Tuesday.
The Minutes
| Year | Meetings | Curator's note | Digitised |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1847 | 4 | The first year of the Society. Two Ordinary, two Extraordinary; one of each was inquorate. | — |
| 1851 | 7 | Year of the First Schism. The Curator notes that meeting iii is recorded twice in the archive, in two divergent accounts. | — |
| 1893 | 14 | The Oxford Comma Schism. Six Extraordinary meetings between March and June. | EGM-IV (March) |
| 1899 | 39 | A record. Owing to the Apostrophe Question, the Society convened an Extraordinary meeting in every week of the second half of the year. | — |
| 1907 | 6 | The Salzburg Compromise was ratified. Four meetings were required to agree the wording of the agenda. | — |
| 1923 | 8 | The Decimation Controversy resolved. Notable also for an EGM at which no Fellow proved capable of pronouncing the Society’s name to the satisfaction of the others. | EGM-II (October) |
| 1947 | 11 | Outbreak of the Split Infinitive Wars. | — |
| 1953 | 4 | An unusually quiet year. The Curator notes the Society was "temporarily exhausted". | OGM-III (June) |
| 1962 | 22 | The Audibility Resolution; the Vote on the Vocative. Nineteen meetings were Extraordinary; three were inquorate. | EGM-XII (October) |
| 1985 | 7 | A standard year. | — |
| 1999 | 19 | The Internet Question. The Society’s first email account was, in this year, opened, denounced, and retained. | EGM-XV (November) |
| 2019 | 13 | The Antipodean Schism. The Society held its first meeting partly conducted by post. | EGM-XI (February) |
| 2024 | 6 | The first year in which all Ordinary meetings were held within the calendar year for which they were scheduled. | AGM (November) |
| 2026 | 4 (to date) | — | — |
The table shows selected years. The full table, 1847–2026, is held at Bedford Square, with a duplicate at the Hammersmith Annex.
Further Holdings
The following documents from the Society's collection have been transcribed and are available for public consultation:
- The Anteroom — a clockwise tour of the Society's commemorative objects, portraits, and the case containing the page on which the founding letter does not appear.
- The Standing Lists — the four leather-bound Lists, including the Standing List of Apologies the Society Has Issued (empty since 1847).
- The Follies — the Society's seven canonical expenditures-in-error, maintained as a separate ledger as a form of institutional honesty.
- The Honorary Foreign Fellows — twelve slots, ten conferrals, one declination (framed), two reserved.
- Notable Commendations — Fellows whose pedantry has, on rare occasions, been of accidental service to the nation.
- On Matrimony and the Society — a Curator's note on domestic exactitude.
- The Pronunciation Demonstrations — recordings of the six methods of audibly indicating the apostrophe.
- The Antipodean Chapter's founding statement — reproduced for the completeness of the record and for no other reason.
- The Errors Register — errors found in the Society's own publications, reported by Fellows and the public, adjudicated in due course.
This page last updated: November 2009.