Beschreibung:

RAFFLES, Sir Thomas Stamford (1781-1826). Autograph manuscript signed, Lower Grosvenor Street, 26 April 1826 , a notice announcing that 'A General Meeting of the friends and Subscribers to the proposed Zoological Society' is to be held on Saturday 29 April at one o'clock at the Horticultural Society in Regent Street, written in brown ink, one page, 4to . The Zoological Society of London was founded at the meeting announced in this notice, and Sir Stamford Raffles, chairman of the friends of the proposed society, was elected its first president. It was the realisation of the plan which, according to his widow, he had discussed with Sir Joseph Banks in 1817, and of which he wrote to his cousin in 1825, 'I am much interested at present in establishing a grand Zoological collection in the metropolis, with a Society for the introduction of living animals, bearing the same relation to Zoology as a science that the Horticultural Society does to Botany ... We hope to have 2,000 subscribers at ¨2 each'. Raffles returned from Singapore in August 1824. His own collection of plants and animals from the Malay Archipelago was lost, together with books and papers, in a disastrous fire on the ship carrying him home. The aims of the proposed Society were set out in a prospectus dated 1 March 1825. It was intended not only to provide resources for students of Natural History or philosphy but also to introduce new varieties and breeds of animals 'for domestication or for the stocking of our farm-yards, woods, pleasure grounds and wastes', and to establish a general zoological collection classified and ordered 'to afford a correct view of the Animal Kingdom'. The committee of friends met in February 1826, and again in March when the prospectus was to be revised and a proposed site examined. At a meeting on 28 April Raffles confirmed that he had issued circulars for the General Meeting the following day. The present notice was written only after he had been able to arrange with the Horticultural Society that it might be held in their rooms (a published invitation dated 24 April is only partially in autograph and does not mention the meeting-place). Among the 48 supporters who attended were the Marquis of Lansdowne, Sir Humphrey Davy (President of the Royal Society) and Lord Auckland. The zoologist Nicholas Vigors was elected secretary and a constitution adopted. Raffles was elected president 'by acclamation' but held the office only briefly, for he died suddenly, of apoplexy, in July 1826. Sir Humphrey Davy, his natural successor, was already a sick man, and Lord Lansdowne was therefore elected to the post. The government proved its sympathy with the gift of a fine site in the new Regent's Park, and the legal status of the Zoological Society was confirmed when it was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1829.