Folkes, Martin (1690-1754)

Letters and papers sent to the Royal Society of London, and mostly published in the Philosophical Transactions. The majority are initialled by Martin Folkes and endorsed with the dates when they were read to the Society. Partly printed.

The papers cover a wide range of scientific subjects, in particular relating to natural history and biology (individual studies of mammals, fish, birds, plants, 'flora and fauna'); and a significant number re experiments involving electricity.

Also: magnetism, geology, astronomy, poison, geography, chemistry - metallurgy, medicine, anatomy, and fossils.

There are also some papers which pertain to Royal Society business.

Within each item, material is arranged alphabetically by author.

MS.1302 purchased 1929 and 1934 (acc.63700 and 78977); MSS.2391-2392 purchased 1932 (acc. 78820); MS.5403 mainly purchased at various Sotheby's, Stevens' and Glendining's sales, 1932-34, especially Stevens' 14-15 Aug. 1934, lots 283-294.

In other repositories: These papers supplement the Royal Society papers in the British Library (Add. MSS. 4432-4448) as well as the Society's own archive. Cf. A H Church, The Royal Society. Some account of the 'Letters and Papers' of the period 1741-1806 in the archives (Oxford, 1908) and Keith Moore and Mary Sampson, A guide to the archives and manuscripts of the Royal Society (London, 1995).

This was previously classified as a manuscript and re-classified as an archive collection during the Wellcome Collection Systems Transformation Programme in 2026.; Collection description compiled by Teresa Doherty based upon those in the Library's published finding aids by S.A.J. Moorat and Richard Palmer and subsequently retroconverted by Ross Macfarlane.

Martin Folkes was an antiquary, and was elected F.R.S. in 1713: he was Vice-President in 1723, and President from 1741 to 1753 (see the Dictionary of National Biography).

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973), and Richard Palmer, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine: Western Manuscripts 5120-6244 (London: The Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine, 1999).