Lunar Society

The Lunar Society was a private club of scientists, industrialists, philosophers and free thinkers that met in Birmingham, England, between 1765 and 1813. They met once a month on the full moon, hence their name, and they jokingly called themselves 'lunatics'. Membership included among others:

• Matthew Boulton, inventor of the modern factory system of production
• James Watt, inventor of the steam engine
• Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet and natural philosopher
• Joseph Priestly, scientist, discoverer of oxygen
• Josiah Wedgwood, pottery manufacturer
• Benjamin Franklin, scientist and politician

The society also dabbled in politics, and as upholders of the rights of man put their support behind those other two great revolutions of the late 18th century, the American Revolution and the French Revolution.