The Origin of the First Hundred Year of the Society

THE ORIGIN AND FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF THE SOCIETY Rev. Lambert Blackwell Larking. Mr. Norman expressed doubt, which was obviously to some extent shared by others, whether this private and preliminary meeting could do more than call a pubhc and general meeting expressly to form a Kent archaeological society, but Larking feared what Webb might do if there were any delay, and after long discussion it was decided to form a Society, to be known as the Kent Archaeological Society, with the Marquis Camden as President and Larking as Honorary Secretary, and to adopt bodily the rules of the Sussex Society, as tested by experience. The propriety of this step was ultimately accepted on the understanding that the appointment of officers and the adoption of Rules would be conditional, and that an interim committee should be appointed to invite the adherence of others wishing to join and to call, when all was ready, not a pubhc general meeting, but a General Meeting of the Society to ratify all the proceedings. At this point Larking was able to announce the names of fifty-two gentlemen of substance or of learning who had aheady expressed a wish to join the Society. For Larking the inauguration of the Society was a personal triumph. He had not sought the Secretaryship; he records in his Journal, " I have neither health, nor vigor, nor youth, nor time—nor capacity for it," and that this is not just idle modesty is proved by the efforts which he made, unsuccessful though they were, to get others to take the office; his true modesty appears, I think, in his remark that " it would have been ungracious and unbecoming to have refused." But whatever fears he may have had about his own shortcomings as the first Honorary Secretary, in his Journal he makes no attempt to conceal the jubilation he felt on " this memorable day, the day of our Foundation. . . . ' In perpetuam rei memoriam ' I will here insert the list of those original members who had the honour of constituting the ' Kent Archaeological Society' when the sun went to his rest on the 19 September 1857 "; and at the end of the list, as indeed often when under the influence of any strong emotion, he finds expression in a Latin tag or two: " manentem mansurumque "—x " Fortunati—si quid mea carmina possunt Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet aevo."2 The next step was to enlist an impressive number of members—and it must be done quickly, because Bish Webb's rival scheme was still afoot. Those members who joined the Society before the first General Meeting required neither proposer nor seconder, and were to be elected 1 " In being now and for ever." 2 " Blest names: if verse of mine hath any power They'll live on History's page till Time's last hour."—Aeneid, ix, 446-7. 4