The Society for Promoting the Knowledge of the Scriptures was a group founded in 1783 in London, with a definite but rather constrained plan for Biblical interpretation. While in practical terms it was mainly concerned with promoting Unitarian views, it was broadly based.

Founders

The founding group included John Disney

John Disney (Unitarian)

John Disney was an English Unitarian minister and biographical writer, initially an Anglican clergyman active against subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles.-Life:...

, the initial Secretary, and John Jebb

John Jebb

John Jebb may refer to:*John Jebb , English clergyman and doctor*John Jebb , bishop of Limerick*John Jebb , chancellor of Hereford Cathedral...

.(ODNB). The membership was 30 to 40, of varied denominations. Among them were Dr. John Calder

John Calder (writer)

-Life:He was a native of Aberdeen, and educated at the university there. The Duke of Northumberland employed him as private secretary, both at Alnwick Castle and in London. Subsequently he for some time had charge of Dr. Williams's Library, and he also acted as minister at a meeting-house near the...

, Michael Dodson

Michael Dodson

-Life:The only son of Joseph Dodson, dissenting minister at Marlborough, Wiltshire, he was born there in September 1732. He was educated at Marlborough grammar school, and then, in accordance with the advice of Sir Michael Foster, justice of the king's bench, was entered at the Middle Temple 31...

, Andrew Kippis

Andrew Kippis

Andrew Kippis was an English nonconformist clergyman and biographer.The son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, he was born at Nottingham. Having gone to school at Sleaford in Lincolnshire he passed at the age of sixteen to the Dissenting academy at Northampton, of which Dr Philip Doddridge was then...

, Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.-Life:...

 and Richard Price

Richard Price

Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...

 in London. Those in the provinces giving at least financial support included Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

, Bishop Edmund Law

Edmund Law

Edmund Law was a priest in the Church of England. He served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1764 to 1769, and as bishop of Carlisle from 1768 to 1787....

, Joshua Toulmin

Joshua Toulmin

Joshua Toulmin of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian , Baptist , and then Unitarian congregations...

, and William Turner

William Turner (minister at Wakefield)

William Turner was an English dissenting divine.-Life:The son of John Turner , he was born at Preston, Lancashire, on 5 December 1714. His father, a restless man, who was minister for short periods at Preston, Rivington, Northwich, Wirksworth, and Knutsford, distinguished himself on the Hanoverian...

. Robert Tyrwhitt

Robert Tyrwhitt

-Life:Born in London, he was younger son of Robert Tyrwhitt , residentiary canon of St Paul's Cathedral, by his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edmund Gibson, bishop of London. Thomas Tyrwhitt was his eldest brother. He entered as a pensioner at Jesus College, Cambridge on 9 March 1753, and...

 joined in 1784.

Commentaries and Essays

The Society produced two volumes of Commentaries and Essays (1787), as its major achievement, before subsiding as inactive. Among the contributors were Michael Dodson and Henry Moore.