The Spalding Gentlemen's Society (or Gentlemen's Club at Spalding) is a learned society founded in 1710 by Maurice Johnson, (1688–1755), of Ayscoughfee Hall, Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. It is still active.
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The society's museum in Broad Street, Spalding, opened in 1911. Additions were made in 1925 and again in 1960. The carved panels of the exterior were the work of Jules Tuerlinckx of Malines, a Belgian refugee during the First World War.
History
The Spalding Gentlemen’s Society started in 1710 with informal meetings of a few gentlemen at a local coffee house in Spalding called Youngers. Many gentlemen's clubs formed in this way around that time. They talked about local antiquities and discussed the popular London newspaper The Tatler. In 1712 the society was organised in a more formal way as a Society of Gentlemen, for the supporting of mutual benevolence, and their improvement in the liberal sciences and in polite learning. Officers were appointed and minutes were kept. Francis Scott, 2nd Duke of Buccleuch (1695–1751), became Patron in 1732.
Records of the society's functions were issued as The Correspondence of the Spalding Gentlemen's Society, 1710–1761 and Minute-Books of The Spalding Gentlemen's Society, 1712–1755. Later works appear in catalogues as produced by "Spalding Gentleman's Society" in 1892 and 1893.
Notable members
Noteworthy and early members of the 'Gentlemen's Society at Spalding' include,