During the first 33 years of the YPS a total of 712 men were elected to membership, and 6 women (although only three in their own right – three were allowed to retain the memberships of their deceased husbands). Roughly 67% lived in York or its immediate vicinity, 30% further out in the three Yorkshire Ridings, and just 3% elsewhere in the country. As many as 106 of the members were ordained ministers of religion, predominantly Church of England, but with Unitarians under Charles Wellbeloved and John Kenrick strongly influential in the affairs of the Society. There were also Catholic priests connected with York convent. The Anglicans included Archbishop Edward Vernon Harcourt and two of his sons, notably William Venables Vernon, a dynamic first president of the Society, together with Harcourt’s successor, Archbishop Musgrave, seven archdeacons, three deans and a bishop. The best known today is perhaps the writer and wit, Sydney Smith. York’s Quakers were well represented, with Backhouses and Tukes, Joseph Rowntree establishing his shop in Pavement, John Ford at Bootham School, and the first woman to be elected, Eliza Stringer, head of the Friends’ Girls’ School. We had at least 25 Lord Mayors of York, most famously George Hudson, who was also one of our 37 MPs. The legal and medical professions counted about 30 members each, with a dozen army and naval officers, and eight York architects. Many titled Yorkshire families appear in the index, Fitzwilliam, Howard, Lascelles and Stourton among them. We list one duke, 6 earls, a viscount and 10 barons, together with 18 baronetcies and numerous members of the landed gentry. Commerce and industry feature regularly in the occupations of York residents, with the famous confectionery families of Rowntree, Terry and Craven all represented by 1855, but for about a third of our members biographical details are lacking at this stage. Further information on them will be gratefully received. In June 1855 the membership stood at 320.
Members were listed fully each year in Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr from 1824 to 1828, then again in 1831, 1834, 1837, 1839, 1842, 1844 and 1855, following the Annual Reports for the previous year.