Index of YPS Members 1855-1890
This index, still a work in progress, contains some 1580 names (as of April 2023), comprising all members elected prior to 1855 who were still living then, together with all who were elected in subsequent years up to 1890. In many cases they lack years of birth and death and other biographical information, which we hope to add over the coming months, although perhaps not researched as extensively as in the Index for 1822-1855. We also intend to add names of those elected over the rest of the 1890s in due course.
‘Lady Subscribers’ and ‘Associates’ (men) are also included. Not full members, they had access to the Museum and Gardens for a reduced annual subscription of £1. Ladies had had this option since the Museum opened in 1830, men only from 1850, but none were listed before 1855.
Whereas in 1855 the full membership stood at 323, plus 52 lady subscribers and 9 associates, by 1890 it had risen to 443 full members, plus 60 lady subscribers and 20 associates. Two significant changes since 1855 were that 51 of the full members were now women, up from only 6; and the number of full members not living in York but ‘residing in the County or beyond its limits’, 83 in 1855 or roughly 25%, was reduced by 1890 to just 26, about 6%. So York residents now made up by far the bulk of the membership.
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