ur of his name helped to attract a large number of
distinguished persons into our ranks. Mr. Granville Barker was one of
the most active of these. He served on the Executive from 1907 to 1912
and took a large share in the detailed work of the Committees, besides
giving many lectures and assisting in social functions. The Rev. R.J.
Campbell, who addressed large meetings on several occasions, as also
elected to the Executive for the year 1908-9, but did not attend a
single meeting. Mr. Aylmer Maude joined the Executive in 1907, held
office to 1912, and is still a working member of the Society. Arnold
Bennett, Laurence Irving, Edgar Jepson, Reginald Bray, L.C.C. (member of
the Executive 1911-12), Sir Leo (then Mr.) Chiozza Money, M.P. (who sat
on the Executive from 1908 to 1911), Dr. Stanton Coit, H. Hamilton Fyfe,
A.R. Orage, G.M. Trevelyan, Edward Garnett, Dr. G.B. Clark (for many
years M.P.), Miss Constance Smedley, Philip Snowden, M.P., Mrs. Snowden
(Executive 1908-9), George Lansbury, Herbert Trench, Jerome K. Jerome,
Edwin Pugh, Spencer Pryse, and A. Clutton Brock are amongst the people
known in politics, literature, or the arts who joined the Society about
this period.

Some of these took little or no part in our proceedings, beyond paying
the necessary subscription, but others lectured or wrote for the Society
or participated in discussions and social meetings. These were at this
time immensely successful. In the autumn of 1907, for example, Mrs.
Bernard Shaw arranged for the Society a series of crowded meetings of
members and subscribers at Essex Hall on "The Faith I Hold." Mrs. Sidney
Webb led off and was followed by the Rev. R.J. Campbell, S.G. Hobson,
Dr. Stanton Coit, H.G. Wells, and Hubert Bland: with an additional
discourse later in the spring by Sir Sydney Olivier. Mr. Wells' paper,
which proved to be far too long for a lecture, was the first draft of
his book "First and Last Things"; but he had tired of the Society when
it was published, and the preface conceals its origin in something of a
mystery. Sir John Gorst, Mrs. Annie Besant, Dr. Suedekum (German M.P.),
Sir John Cockburn, K.C.M.G., the Hon. W.P. Reeves, Raymond Unwin, and
Sir Leo Chiozza Money were amongst the other lecturers of that year.

* * * * *

In 1906 and succeeding years a new form of organisation was established.
Members spontaneously associated themselves into groups, "The Nursery"
for the young, the Wome