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. Goold was given the title of president and chairman, which he held until his death in 1893.
The Society sold the privilege of wearing academic dressThe hood was in the simple shape, of black silk, lined with lavender silk and edged with white cord, according to: and of 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. 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."
Aims and structure
The Society appears to have been active from 1882 or 1883.Berrow's Worcester Journal, Worcester, England, Saturday, 19 May 1883; p.4; Issue 9892. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II Its laws, dated 10 November 1885, said that the Society was entitled to charge a fee, and that the members may not retain any of the Society's money, but were entitled to use the letters F.S.Sc. after their name, and to pay for the privilege. To use these letters, a member did not have to pass an examination or achieve anything in the disciplines of science or art. The society's aims, according to the 1884 prospectus, were to promote science, literature and art and to encourage its Fellows "to form scientific, literary and musical circles of the Society throughout the world." Membership was limited to 1,000 Foundation Fellows who paid half price, and any number of Ordinary Fellows and Members, who paid full price. For a Foundation Fellow, annual subscription was one guinea and life subscription cost five guineas. The Society's apologist, the former embezzler Joseph Ostler alias C. Frusher Howard, described it as follows, in a letter dated December 1893:"Its affairs are managed by a president, several vice-presidents, a numerous Council and two paid secretaries; its fellows and members are university graduates, Fellows of learned societies, authors, and others eminent in science, literature and art. It holds periodical meetings for lectures etc., for the reading of original and interesting papers, for the promotion of new works, discoveries and inventions, and for the diffusion of useful knowledge; it also publishes a quarterly journal of its transactions."
Journal The image of the Latin seal on the Society's certificate presented to members is dated MDCCCLXXXI, or 1881.See image: :File:SSLA certificate 1894.JPG Its Chairman, Sir H.V. Goold, stated in 1884 that the Society had been "established for some years."H. V. Goold. Bart., Chairman. "A New Learned Society" The Times 6 March 1884: 4. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 6 February 2014 There are records of fellowships being granted by the Society from 1883. However the earliest known Journal was published on 10 November 1884, and gives the Society's address as Addison House, 160 Holland Road, near Addison Road Station, Kensington, West London.The Journal of the Society of Science, Letters and Art, of London, Issue for October, 1884. (Page, Pratt & Turner, London, 10 November 1884)Note: there are no pre-20th century buildings with house numbers higher than around 145 in Holland Road, and it can be assumed that no.160 was demolished. It functions as a prospectus for the Society, and sets out its aims and aspirations. It contains a list of its honourable representatives, its officers and its council; a list of "scientific, literary, & musical circles about to be formed;" the conditions and privileges of fellowship. It also contains an "application for admission as Fellow of the Society," with name left blank to be filled in, and pre-stamped with the chairman's facsimile signature of acceptance, and a "Formal certificate of a candidate for admission as Fellow," for recommendation, similarly pre-stamped.British Library: Evanion catalogue Membership details for the Society of Science, Letters and Art, of London, for October, 1884. Retrieved 2 February 2014 The prospectus was followed in 1885 by a printed programme of exhibitions in the sciences and arts.British Library: Evanion catalogue, 1885 SSLA programme of exhibitions Retrieved 2 February 2014
Papers and addresses One of the academic papers published in 1884 by the Society was Some notes on the stage and its influences on the education of the masses, players and playgoers etc., by Henry Blau.Brenda Assael, The Circus and Victorian Society (Victorian Literature and Culture Series, 2005), p.203 Another of these papers was The ideographic ornamentation of Gothic buildings written in 1902 by the artist and antiquarian Thomas Tindall Wildridge.The Arcane Schools, by John Yarker 2 February 2014 This article was informed by his book, The Grotesque in Church Art.Internet Archive: T. Tindall Wildridge, The Grotesque in Church Art (London, W. Andrews & Co., 1899). See also his painting: :File:William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk.jpgHull History Centre: Thomas Tindall Wildridge research guide Retrieved 14 April 2025
In 1897 the Society sent an Address to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee.The National Archives: Society of Science, Letters and Art of London, Ltd: address to Queen Victoria on her Diamond Jubilee Document at Kew, ref. PP 1/375/46. Retrieved 2 February 2014
Officers
Sir Henry Valentine Goold, baronet The chairman and president of the society from 1882 to 1893 was the impecunious and propertyless Irish baronet Sir Henry Valentine Goold (1803–1893), the third of the Goold baronets of Oldcourt House, Cork.Goold was president of the society in 1887: see image :File:Henry Valentine Goold letter 1887.JPGYorkshire Evening Post, 10 July 1893Kingston Historical Website: Society of Science, Letters and Art, London Retrieved 2 February 2013 He was born on 7 July 1803 in Baker Street, Marylebone, and died in Croydon on 18 June 1893, age 89.Death cert: Jun 1893, Goold, Henry Valentine, 90, Croydon, 2a/163The Times, 4 July 1893: Deaths. Note: his name is spelt "Gould" in The Times The family motto was Deus mihi providebit, or "God will provide".William Betham, The Baronetage of England, Or the History of the English Baronets, and Such Baronets of Scotland, as are of English Families: With Genealogical Tables, and Engravings of Their Armorial Bearings, Volume 5, (Miller 1805) p.485 A grandson of the 3rd Goold baronet, and nephew of Sir Henry Valentine Goold, was Vere St. Leger Goold, a tennis player and criminal who was incarcerated on Devil's Island and died there.
Goold served on Cork County Grand Jury in 1842.Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, Dublin, Ireland, Monday, 18 July 1842 He was Deputy Lieutenant for Cork but resigned the position in 1862.Edinburgh Gazette 10 January 1862: Dublin Castle, 6 January 1862 Retrieved 3 February 2014"Obituary." The Times London, England 8 July 1893: 10. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. He wrote The Single Serpentine Course of the Moon Round the Sun and the Earth (A. Boot & Son, 1883).Internet Archive: William Henry Phillips, The Single Serpentine Course of the Moon Round the Sun and the Earth (A Boot & Son, 1883) retrieved 5 February 2014. Note: the Internet Archive site credits William Henry Phillips with this book; that is either an error or Goold was using a pseudonym. In July 1874, he sold off 650 acres of his estate, in the Landed Estates Court.Nui Galway: The Goold estate in Cork Retrieved 3 February 2014The Irish Law Times, vol.VIII, p.343, 4 July 1874: Landed estates court, Tuesday Retrieved 3 February 2014 In 1878 he was involved in a Court dispute with Holmwood, Row and Company.National Archives: 1878 Court case, Holmwood, Row and Company v Sir H V Goold, ref.J 55/15/34 Retrieved 3 February 2014
Notwithstanding any position or duties retained in Cork, by the time he died Goold had lived in West Croydon for many years. The 1861 Census shows a married gentleman born in Marylebone called Henry Goold living in Pier Road, North Aylesford, Kent, with his wife Sarah, aged 35.United Kingdom Census 1861. RG/09/5/p.2.PieceNo.472 He appears unmistakably on the Census only once: in 1881, living at 8 Canterbury Road, Croydon with a fifteen-year-old servant, Jane Smith. He is 77 years old, described as a married baronet and as a property and landowner.United Kingdom Census 1881. RG/11/812/p.2 In April 1893, he was summoned before the County Court judge at Croydon to answer for an unpaid debt accrued by himself, but the judge declined to commit him to jail due to his advanced age. The York Herald made its own judgement, saying, "If he is considered too old to be made to pay his debts, many people will think he is also too old to be in a position to incur any."York Herald, 28 April 1893 Goold did not marry. His heir was his nephew, the 4th Baronet Sir James Stephen Goold, who inherited only the title, emigrated to Australia, and worked anonymously for a railway company as a "permanent way man", or railway line maintenance man.
Successors Goold died in 1893, and was succeeded as president by James S. Forsyth, D.D. until at least 1894. Robert Palmer, M.A. was the Hon. Secretary in 1894.See image of 1894 certificate :File:SSLA certificate 1894.JPG
Secretaries
The Hon. Secretary was Dr Edward Albert Sturman, M.A., FRSL (1840–1899), and his wife was Lady Secretary.The Belfast News-Letter, Belfast, Ireland, Friday, 9 January 1885; Issue 21703Birth cert: December 1840, Sturman, Edward Albert, Shoreditch, II/370Death Cert: June 1899, Sturman, Edward Albert. 58, Kensington, 1a/109 Sturman and his wife owned the Holland Road premises and the Society, and accepted all its profits, using Goold's name and rank as bait to impress and convince new paying members.
Sturman's father was George Sturman, a gun-maker born in Tower Hamlets, Middlesex in 1800. His mother Sarah was born in 1804 in Bethnal Green, and Sturman was born in Hoxton. The 1841 census finds Sturman, at six months the youngest of eight children, living with his parents at 25 East Road in Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, in the parish of St Leonard.United Kingdom Census 1841. HO/107/707/7, p.8 In 1851 they were occupying a house at 2 Church Row, Upper Street, in St Mary's, Islington.United Kingdom Census 1851 HO/107/1501, p.655"Stoke Newington: Growth: Church Street", A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 163-168 Retrieved 8 February 2014. Note: Church Row was demolished in 1932 to make way for the Town Hall By 1861 the family had moved a couple of doors along, to a room in number 4a Church Row, which was fairly crowded with artisan tenants. Sturman was by then aged 20 and a schoolmaster, still unmarried and living with his parents.United Kingdom Census 1861, RG/9/138, p.6