Powers of the Realm · Learned body

Learned body

Geographical Society

Also called the Society

A learned society whose president's addresses are quoted throughout on the shape and limits of British knowledge of the world; it keeps a journal in which returned travellers are quoted.

Named with it

  • President Albinia Strange

Ties

  • its presidential sayings are set beside those of the Chart Office examiners

At the table

President Strange told a committee that the limit of reliable knowledge is a shaded fringe rather than a line. The societies now require a statement at the head of travel narratives giving length of stay, season, company and language, and several once-famous accounts have since gone out of circulation.