Datasheet for the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions in 1752
1. What periodicals did the Royal Society publish?
At this time, the Transactions contained accounts of new discoveries and observations in natural philosophy, natural history and mathematics. All published papers had been previously presented to a meeting of the Royal Society. The volume parts usually appeared in spring and autumn, though separate copies were supplied to authors as soon as they were available.
Volume 47 of Philosophical Transactions covered the period 1751 - 1752; and contained 98 articles, running to 571 pages.
2. How was the Philosophical Transactions edited and managed?
From 1752, the Philosophical Transactions formally had no editor; it was edited by the Committee of Papers of the Royal Society (whose membership was identical to that of the Society's governing body, the Council). The Committee of Papers met a week or so after each ordinary meeting of the Society, to consider the secretary's minutes of the papers now due to be considered for publication. The members voted by secret ballot, and although no discussion was permitted at the meetings, there is surviving evidence of discussion before the meetings. Occasionally, a member of the Committee of Papers was asked to scrutinize the full text of a paper, and to report back to a future meeting: this process was known as ‘referring’ a paper. Papers could be submitted to the Society only by its Fellows, though Fellows could communicate papers on behalf of others. The President and Secretary (in 1752, George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield and Peter Davall, respectively) were often asked to act in this role, and could thus exert significant gate-keeping powers.
The surviving evidence for the details or timing of editorial practice at this time is scattered through the Council Minutes; it is difficult to form an overall picture, or to generate statistics.
3. What do we know about print run or circulation?
Once the Philosophical Transactions came into Royal Society ownership, information about its print run and circulation is scattered through the Society's surviving Council Minutes. A large fraction of the print run was reserved for free distribution to the Fellows, but Fellows had to actively claim their copies from the Society's clerk within five years of publication; not all did so. The Society gave away some tens of copies as gifts to individuals or institutions. The remainder were available for sale by the Society's printer, C. Davis. The Society's archives rarely record price information; we have sometimes been able to acquire this from other sources.
We do not have price or print run information for every year; if we do not have it for your specified year, the table below will show data for the nearest years before and after your specified year; if no data is shown, we have nothing within ten years of your year.
| Cost of an issue/part of Philosophical Transactions | 0.6 (1754, missing data) |
| Cost of purchasing the entire year's Philosophical Transactions | 0.6 (1752) |
| Print run | 750 (1753) |
| Number of Fellows of the Royal Society | 483 (1752) |
4. What do we know about the financial and commercial aspects of journal publishing?
In 1752, the Royal Society's printer was C. Davis. Little is known about their financial agreement. We usually have more information about the costs of printing than about any income it generated, except for the period from 1752 to 1765, for which there are detailed returns of income from the Society's bookseller. We also know that the Society's initial agreement with the bookseller the Society gave him a trade commission and a warehousing discount.
| Royal Society annual expenditure on publications for 1752 A breakdown of costs may be available | missing data |
| Paper purchased for all RS publications | missing data |
| All RS payments to engravers, lithographers or other suppliers of illustrations | missing data |
| Charges for typesetting and printing of Philosophical Transactions | missing data |
| Income received from sale of publications (if available for 1752) | missing data |
| Net cost of publishing to the Society (if calculable for 1752) | missing data |
| Total expenditure of the Royal Society that year | 108800 |
| Total income of the Royal Society that year | missing data |
Read particular articles or browse issues from the Philosophical Transactions.
To download this datasheet as PDF, click here.
To cite this datasheet:
A. Fyfe et al. (2017), ‘Key facts datasheet for Philosophical Transactions in 1752’, Publishing the Philosophical Transactions, 1665-2015 https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/keyfacts/1752
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