The British Ecological Society celebrates its 75th anniversary in 1988. The Society evolved out of the British Vegetation Committee, which was founded in 1904 to promote the survey and study of vegetation in the British Isles. This initiative was in turn the outcome of what many historians perceive to have been the emergence of modern ecology in the 1890s. In tracing the circumstances in which the British Ecological Society came to be established, and the course of events since 1913, this book is in effect celebrating a hundred years of ecology. In it, publications and material from the Society's archives are included, and the text is supported by a wide range of additional published and manuscript material. In looking at the earlier history of the Society, the book provides a considerable amount of background information on trends in ecological thinking and activity. The work aims to provide a context and perspective for those making more detailed investigations of the often intricate, but usually fascinating, history of how ecology came to occupy its present position in the sciences in Britain.