Editing Lunar Society of Birmingham (section)

===The Lunar Circle 1765–1775===
[[File:William Small - Tilly Kettle.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[William Small]]]]The nature of the group was to change significantly with the move to Birmingham in 1765 of the Scottish physician [[William Small]], who had been Professor of Natural Philosophy at [[The College of William & Mary]] in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]]. There he had taught and been a major influence over [[Thomas Jefferson]], and had formed the focus of a local group of intellectuals. His arrival with a letter of introduction to Matthew Boulton from Benjamin Franklin was to have a galvanising effect on the existing circle, which began to explicitly identify itself as a group and actively started to attract new members.<ref>{{Harvnb|Schofield|1966|pp=146–147}}</ref>

The first of these was [[Josiah Wedgwood]], who became a close friend of Darwin in 1765 while campaigning for the building of the [[Trent and Mersey Canal]]<ref>{{Harvnb|King-Hele|1998|p=159}}</ref> and subsequently closely modelled his large new [[pottery]] factory at [[Etruria, Staffordshire]] on Boulton's [[Soho Manufactory]].<ref name="ref6" /> Another new recruit, [[Richard Lovell Edgeworth]], met Darwin, Small and Boulton in 1766 through a shared interest in carriage design, and he in turn introduced his friend and fellow [[Rousseau]]-admirer [[Thomas Day (writer)|Thomas Day]], with whom he had studied at [[Corpus Christi College, Oxford]].<ref name="ref8">{{Harvnb|Schofield|1966|pp=147–148}}</ref> In 1767 [[James Keir]] visited Darwin in Lichfield, where he was introduced to Boulton, Small, Wedgwood and Whitehurst and subsequently decided to move to Birmingham.<ref name="ref8" />

The Lunar Circle also attracted more distant involvement. [[Joseph Priestley]], then living in [[Leeds]] and a close friend of John Michell, became associated with the Society in 1767 when Darwin and Wedgwood became involved with his work on electricity.<ref name="Schofield 1957 411"/> In the same year [[James Watt]] visited Birmingham on the recommendation of his business patron [[John Roebuck]], being shown around the Soho Manufactory by Small and Darwin in Boulton's absence. Although neither Priestley nor Watt were to move to Birmingham for several years, both were to be in constant communication with the Birmingham members and central to the circle's activities from 1767.<ref>{{Harvnb|Schofield|1966|p=148}}</ref>

By 1768 the core group of nine individuals who would form the nucleus of the Lunar Society had come together with Small at their heart.<ref name="ref3" /> The group at this time is sometimes referred to as the "Lunar circle", though this is a later description used by historians,<ref name="Schofield 1963 17">{{Harvnb|Schofield|1963|p=17}}</ref> and the group themselves used a variety of less specific descriptions, including "Birmingham Philosophers" or simply "fellow-schemers".<ref>{{Harvnb|Schofield|1966|pp=149–150}}</ref>