ABSTRACT
In 1826 John Phillips assumed the post of first keeper of the Society's museum at a salary of £60 per annum, an emolument which he supplemented by fees from lecturing in York and in large towns in northern England. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS) wanted to mount lectures as part of its aim of diffusing a taste for science, which as well as being valuable in itself might increase the membership, income, and resources of the Society. As keeper to the YPS, Phillips knew that a scheme for a new building to house the collections, then lodged in rented rooms in Low Ousegate, had been formally launched in March 1825. Thus William Vernon Harcourt and Phillips shared a theological view of the YPS's museum and an irenic ideology of the science it promoted. Until July 1828 Phillips' aim, it seems, was to publish his section of the Yorkshire coast and to develop his geological knowledge of its interior.
