Belfast Literary Society

The Belfast Literary Society was founded in 1801 and survives as the second oldest learned society in Belfast (the Belfast Reading Society, now the Linen Hall Library, predates it by just over a decade). Its first meeting was held in the long demolished Exchange Rooms in Belfast on 23 October.

The Exchange Rooms in 1841

Among the 12 founding members were Rev. William Hamilton Drummond, Dr. William Bruce, Henry Joy, John Templeton, S.M. Stephenson, S.S. Thompson and James McDonnell.[1][2] Early corresponding members included the United Irish exile David Bailie Warden, member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia and of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, .