page_title: Society of Science, Letters and Art
section_title: Eminent Fellows and those affiliated with legitimate societies
hierarchical_section_title: Society of Science, Letters and Art / People associated with the SSLA / Fellows / Eminent Fellows and those affiliated with legitimate societies
caption_attribution_description: Reverse of gold-plated bronze medallion of 1885, presented by the Society of Science, Letters and Art to George Hawker. The medallion's artist is unknown. There is nothing written on the side of the medallion. Diameter 1.5in or 3.75cm.
context_page_description: 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 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.
context_section_description: Johann Gottlieb Otto Tepper (1841–1923), Hon. Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, was a botanist, schoolteacher and entomologist who was a life member of the SSLA and received its medallion in 1898. American physician, surgeon, and gynaecologist Newsom Jones Pittman (1818–1893) was vice president of the North Carolina Medical Society and of the American Medical Association, besides being a Master Mason. Charles Farrar Forster (1848–1894) was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and first vicar of the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Beckwithshaw, North Yorkshire, England. Mr O'Donovan, FRGS, was the Parliamentary Librarian of Queensland; the Society posted his Latin diploma of Fellowship to him in 1885. Mr Fremersdorf, FRGS, of East Bourke, Victoria, Australia, was appointed Honorary Representative to Washington Territory for the SSLA in 1885.
caption: Gold medallion awarded to George Hawker, 1885
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