Sir Henry Lyons (1864–1944) was the Director of the Science Museum and the Treasurer of the Royal Society in London. He began researching this administrative history of the Society in 1940, and managed to complete it shortly before his death from ill health. In it, he reviews the way in which the Society's council governed its affairs during the two and a half centuries in which it gained its reputation in the scientific world. A brief bibliography is supplied at the end of every chapter. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of science and the creation and continuation of the Royal Society.