ABSTRACT
Science in isolation is sterile. To thrive and, indeed, to prosper it needs the catalytic action pro-
vided by contact between like-minded individuals. When the scientific community was as small as it was in South Africa in the earliest years of this century, its very survival depended crucially upon two learned institutions for support, encouragement and occasional strong representations to government. The bodies concerned were the Royal Society of South Africa and the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, later to be known, rather appropriately, as S2A3. While the former bore the much revered title of its illustrious British counterpart, it is not to be confused as a mere local branch or agency of the London institution, for it was awarded the Royal Charter in its own right in 1908 after first coming into existence in 1877 as the South African Philosophical Society. In 1902 the South African Association for the Advancement of Science was formed, not in competition with its philosophical counterpart but in close collaboration with it, along the same lines as the links that exist between the Royal Society of London and the British Association [1]. The bonds of Empire were indeed strong.
