Avebury, and Roman Chesterford and elsewhere and drew heavily on the society’s Minutes for his own publications. (Piggott 1985). Engravings of monuments, coins, seals, and antiquities were issued regularly to members and were often seen as a reason for joining the society. In 1740, a large-format series of illustrations, later issued with substantial text, was given the name Vetusta Monumenta, and it continued to be published until the early twentieth century. The preservation of historical monuments has been a concern since the society paid to protect the thirteenth-century Waltham Cross in 1721.

The society had a membership of about 150 in 1751 when it was granted a royal charter by King George II, who became its patron, and its members became entitled to call themselves “fellows of the Society of Antiquaries” (or FSA). Its purpose was widened to cover the study of the past of other countries as well as that of Britain in order to encompass a current interest in classical antiquities, and a wide international outlook has been a feature ever since. A number of Italian fellows were elected soon afterward, including the artist Giambattista Piranesi (1720–1778). Once the society had been incorporated as a chartered learned society, bequests could be accepted, and the collections grew rapidly from the contents of a box in 1719 to about 3,000 books, 250 manuscripts, and 5,000 prints and drawings by the time of the first published catalog of books and manuscripts in 1816. In 1753, the society rented rooms in a former London coffeehouse in Chancery Lane, which provided a secure space for the library, but it soon outgrew those premises. In 1781, the Society of Antiquaries joined the Royal Society and the Royal Academy in spacious new accommodations with finely decorated rooms at Somerset House, which had been granted by their patron at the time, King George III.

Some commentators believe that the eighteenth-century antiquaries contributed little toward an understanding of the distant past (Piggott 1989). However, in the absence of any framework for dating prehistoric remains, some fellows made perceptive comments. In a paper on stone hand-axes found at Hoxne, Suffolk, in 1797, john frere claimed that they had been made at a very remote period, beyond that of the present world, which has caused him to be described as “the father of scientific archaeology” (Wymer 1999). His observations and others by fellows were published in the society’s Archaeologia, (1770–), the longest-running archaeological journal in Great Britain and the world.

Nevertheless, the society’s most notable contribution in the eighteenth century was toward the understanding of British medieval art and architecture. The commissioning of record drawings of medieval buildings was an important aspect of the society’s work, and artists such as George Vertue and John Carter were appointed as draftsmen. The thirteenth-century murals at the Palace of Westminster and the sixteenth-century murals at Cowdray House, Sussex, were recorded and published by the society (both buildings were later destroyed by fire). A series of detailed engravings of English cathedrals was launched in 1792, and the first color illustrations of the Bayeux Tapestry were published between 1821 and 1825 in Vetusta Monumenta. Key manuscript sources for British history, such as the twelfth-century “Winton Domesday” and the mid-sixteenth-century “Inventory of Henry VIII,” were purchased by the society although it was nearly 200 years before transcripts of them were published.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the society was considered fashionable, and members included leading politicians, noblemen, clergy, lawyers, and collectors and by 1812, it had 800 members. However, the society suffered from intrigues, poor financial management, and a lack of direction. Numbers declined, and papers read at meetings and publications concentrated on the literary sources of British history. Other national societies, such as the British Archaeological Association and the Archaeological Institute (later the royal archaeological institute), were founded in the 1840s, and they were soon followed by county societies. These new organizations appealed to a wider public and a growing interest in archaeology and historical monuments.

The Society of Antiquaries of London remained a small, closed elite society, but it managed