Eclectic Society (Christian)

The Eclectic Society met fortnightly, initially at the Castle and Falcon Inn, and later in the vestry of St John's Chapel, Bedford Road, London.

Foreign missions were first discussed in 1786, and again in 1789 and 1791 with the growing realization of the scope for a society that would evangelise indigenous peoples around the world.

Foreign missions was again discussed in 1796, by which time both the Baptist and London Missionary Societies had been founded, but it was not until three years later that action was taken.

In 1797, Josiah Pratt, a clergyman from Birmingham who came to London as a curate, joined the Eclectic Society and in February 1799 he proposed the following question for discussion: "How far may a periodical Publication be made subservient to the interest of Religion?"

The discussions led, two years later, to the starting of the Christian Observer which became for much of the nineteenth century a valuable organ of Evangelical principles and work.