The Association of Burglary Insurance Surveyors has a custom whereby the winner of its annual personality award, also known as the Ken Bolton Memorial, gives a presentation.
The Association of Burglary Insurance Surveyors has a custom whereby the winner of its annual personality award, also known as the Ken Bolton Memorial, gives a presentation to ABIS before the following year’s annual general meeting. The 2001 winner, Ray Sands, has been in the security industry for more than 25 years. His work has involved security product design and quality control. He has worked in the field of European standards, towards ensuring that the UK security industry’s view is upheld against some 17 other European countries. Ray served on the British Standard Institute committees since 1990. He has also been a member of the CEN Technical Committee 263, active on all three of its European working groups and more recently, as Convenor of TC263, until his recent retirement. He was formerly Managing Director of Chubb Research having joined Chubb Lock and Safe in 1985 from BSA, where he was a metallurgist. Ray’s talk was about an informal circle of men called ‘lunatics’. Not the ABIS board but The Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group of eminent men whose joy was the applying science in the early years of the Industrial Revolution …
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Ray advised that the talk was not in fact about anybody in the insurance or security industry, but about an eminent group known as ‘The Lunar Society of Birmingham’. The Industrial Revolution, which started in the 18th century, transformed Britain from a predominantly rural society to an increasingly urban population whose wealth came from commerce and manufacturing. The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a group of eminent men whose joy was the application of science, manufacturing, mining, transport, education and medicine. They were at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and have indeed been described as the ‘Revolutionary Committee for the Industrial Revolution’. The Lunar Society was second only to The Royal Society, and to that eminent body no less than 11 of the 14 Lunar Society members would be elected. They were not a political body but really believed that they could improve the lot of ordinary people, abhorring slavery and tyranny and believing in self help and capitalism.
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Cheerful lunatics
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The name Lunar Society, from whence the members cheerfully christened themselves "lunatics" came from the habit of holding their monthly meetings on the afternoon of the Monday nearest to a full moon. This choice of meeting date being dictated by the need for moonlight for the return journey home by horse carriage during the winter months. The people who in fact formed the Society first came together in 1765 and comprised Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin and William Small. Matthew Boulton was probably the most important of the founders. Although best known for the steam engines which resulted from his partnership with James Watt, Boulton should also be remembered, amongst other achievements, for establishing manufacturing technology, bringing the economic steam engine to the market and for developing high quality, fraud resistant coinage.
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The origin of Darwin
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Erasmus Darwin was a genius who first explained how clouds form and how artesian wells work. He also laid the foundation for scientific agriculture, invented a speaking machine, limited to the words "Mamma" and "Pappa" and published a theory of evolution 60 years before his grandson Charles. He fathered 14 children, two of them whilst between wives! William Small, who was born in Scotland, would today be described as a "consummate networker" and it was he who brought together for the first time most of those who constituted the Lunar Society. At one time, Small taught mathematics to Thomas Jefferson, who was to become the third President of the USA. Other famous members of the Society include James Watt who developed the steam engine, Josiah Wedgwood, the great potter, William Murdoch who gave us lighting and Joseph Priestley who is credited with the discovery of oxygen and with the first understanding of the combustion process. Ray went on to talk about other less well known, but important, members such as James Keir, Samuel Galton, Francis Galton, William Withering, John Whitehurst, Thomas Day and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. The Lunar Society came to an end soon after the deaths of its founding members probably due the fact that the younger members did not have the same intellect or breadth of interest as the founders. The Society in fact dwindled away until recently when the Lunar Society of Birmingham was resurrected and once again meets to discuss important topics. However, no longer must the meetings be held at full moon! This was an absolutely fascinating talk by Ray Sands, thoroughly enjoyed by all of the ABIS audience.
