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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
An association modelled in organisation and purpose on the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures in Great Britain, founded in London in 1754
Dedicated to the promotion of the progress of the Island, 'with rules, regulations and premiums a majority of the members shall then find conducive to the public weal and the encouragement of arts, sciences, industry, agriculture or manufactures', it was a Classic British patriotic society of the mid-eighteenth century generated by the success and growing aspirations of the young United Kingdom.
With John Quayle II, Comptroller of the Island and Clerk of the Rolls, the Manx-speaking administrative expert at the centre of the Island's government as the empowering founding force, the Vicar-General, James Wilks, Secretary, and Governor John Wood as President, a small group of 'gentlemen' organised in a democratic structure acted as an economic policy think-tank. Regrettably only a few of their constitutionally-prescribed records have survived to document the initial advances achieved in the trade of the Island, particularly concentrated on increasing the manufacture and export of linen.
The last resolution of the Society setting out its progress dates from 1768 and the Duke of Atholl's accounts record the payments of his annual subscription of £20 up to 1770. The first byelaws of the Douglas Society of Bucks, four months older, listed 'The Manx Society' as an official patriotic Toast. At some undated point between 1770 and 1787 the alteration of the toast to 'The Revival of the Manx Society' is its last record.
M.N.H.L, Atholl Papers, 33B(2)-13,
36/38(2)-18, 52-4,
M.M.Mss 1147C; Bridge House papers, 4952A.
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
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