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.
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