The London Positivist Society was a philosophical circle that met in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, between 1867 and 1974. In 1934 it merged with the English Positivist Committee. The Society's members occupied themselves in applying the ideas of the philosophical school of Comtean

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

 positivism

Positivism

Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

 to current affairs of the day, including the movement for home rule

Home rule

Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....

 in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 (which the Society supported, following Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

's lead), the Second Boer War

Second Boer War

The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

 (which the Society opposed), and the Indian independence movement

Indian independence movement

The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

 (which the Society supported).

History

The Society was founded by Richard Congreve

Richard Congreve

Richard Congreve was one of the leading figures in the specifically religious interpretation of Auguste Comte's form of positivism. In that capacity he founded the London Positivist Society in 1867 and the Comtist Church of Humanity in 1878...

 (4 September 1818–5 July 1899) in 1867. Its members at one time or another included Henry Tompkins (1870–1954); Donald Fincham (1916–1969); George Henry Lewes

George Henry Lewes

George Henry Lewes was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He became part of the mid-Victorian ferment of ideas which encouraged discussion of Darwinism, positivism, and religious scepticism...

 (1817–1878); Frederick William Walsh (1879–1923), who had been paralysed in an industrial accident but whose mind remained sharp; Paul Juste Decours; and Benjamin Fossett Lock (honorary secretary of the Society 1880–1886), who resigned in 1886 over the Irish home rule

Home rule

Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....

 debate.

In 1934 the London Positivist Society merged with the English Positivist Committee, taking the latter's name.

The Society's presidents included

• Edward Spencer Beesley (till 1901)
• Shapland Hugh Swinny
  Shapland Hugh Swinny
  Shapland Hugh Swinny was an Irish economist and Comtean positivist.Shapland Hugh Swinny was born in Dublin in 1857, the son of Captain Shapland Swiny. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1880 and M.A...
  
   (30 December 1857–31 August 1923), Society president 1901–1923

Swinny was a personal friend of several Indian nationalists, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Lokmanya Tilak –, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and independence fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called the great leader "Father of the Indian unrest"...

.

Sources

• Catalogue of the papers of the London Positivist Society at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics
  London School of Economics
  The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
  
  .
• http://membres.lycos.fr/clotilde/disciple/britain/
• http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=5635&inst_id=1
• http://heresiarch.org/hughswinny.php – a detailed biography of Swinny and Victorian positivist history