Society of Science, Letters and Art

Society of Science, Letters and Art
Gold medallion and Society emblem: Athena with attributes of science, letters and art
Founder(s)Dr Edward Albert Sturman, M.A., F.R.S.L.
Established1882
PresidentSir Henry Valentine Goold
ChairSir Henry Valentine Goold
(1882–1893)
Members1,500 (1892)
OwnerDr Edward Albert Sturman, M.A., F.R.S.L.
Location
Addison House, 160 Holland Road, Kensington, London (demolished)
,
England
Dissolvedafter 1902

The Society of Science, Letters and Art, also known as the Society of Science or SSLA, was a soi-disant learned society which flourished between 1882 and 1902. Dr Edward Albert Sturman, M.A., F.R.S.L., owned and ran the Society for his own financial benefit from his house at Holland Road in Kensington, London. He took the title of Hon. Secretary and worked under the name of the Irish baronet Sir Henry Valentine Goold, who was given the title of President and chairman, until Goold died in 1893.

The Society sold the privilege of wearing academic dress[1] and using the postnominal letters F.S.Sc. to both eminent and ordinary people around the world, without the obligation to sit an examination or to submit papers. Many members of legitimate learned societies were duped into thinking that they were being offered fellowships by a department of their own respected institution. The Society also sold diplomas and masqueraded as an examination board for schools, although it merely provided exam papers and did not examine candidates. In 1883 Sir Henry Trueman Wood accused the Society of Science, Letters and Art of needing the "borrowed light" of the Royal Society of Arts, after the SSLA sold its own Fellowships to members of the RSA, allowing them to assume that the offer was supported by the RSA.[2] After an 1892 exposure of the Society in the investigative journal Truth, The Evening Post in Auckland said the SSLA was "a bogus literary society."[3]

  1. ^ The hood was in the simple shape, of black silk, lined with lavender silk and edged with white cord, according to: Haycraft, Frank W (1924). The Degrees and Hoods of the World's Universities and Colleges (second ed.). London and Cheshunt: The Cheshunt Press. p. 26.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Joseph Ostler and SSLA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference EPNZ 7 June 1893 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).