Present: The President (Sir Algernon Goodyear), the Secretary, and forty-one Fellows. (See attendance list, Schedule A; see also corrected attendance list, Schedule B; see also further corrected attendance list, Schedule C.)

Apologies: None.

Minutes of the previous meeting: Read. Disputed. The Secretary undertook to consult the original shorthand, which is held by Mrs Pemberton (#00164a, retired). The matter was deferred.

Item 1. The proper meaning of "decimate". The Chair invited Prof. Cornelius Frampton to introduce the motion. Prof. Frampton declined, on the ground that he had introduced the motion at the previous meeting and that the previous meeting's minutes were in dispute. The Chair invited any other Fellow to introduce the motion. No Fellow accepted the invitation. The Chair introduced the motion himself. Mr Whitwell raised a point of order: the Chair, by introducing the motion, had ceased to be the Chair. The point was upheld. The Chair vacated the chair. The Vice-President took the chair. The Vice-President invited the former Chair to speak from the floor. The former Chair did so, at length.

Item 1, continued. Debate. The motion, as proposed by the former Chair, sought to confirm "decimate" in its sense of one in ten, against the modern usage. Mr Wrenfield observed that "the modern usage" had been condemned by the Society in 1869 and might therefore be taken as already settled. The Vice-President accepted the observation but ruled that the motion should nevertheless be put. Mr Wrenfield concurred but minuted his concurrence as a formal objection.

Item 1, concluded. The motion was put. Carried, 22–18, with one abstention. The abstention was the former Chair, on the ground that he had ceased to be the Chair, and the matter could be revisited only by his successor in office.

Item 2. The minutes of the present meeting. Mrs Wetherby (#00180) raised a point of order: the minutes, as being recorded, were already in dispute. The Vice-President noted the point but declined to minute the dispute, on the ground that to do so would be to settle, prematurely, a matter under discussion. Mrs Wetherby withdrew the point and substituted an amendment. The amendment was lost.

Any Other Business. None of substance.

Date of next meeting: Tuesday, 16th October, 7.00 p.m. The motion of "decimate" to be revisited at that meeting, no Fellow having proposed otherwise.