In its reply, the Council stated that the question of women fellows "must depend on the interpretation to be placed upon the Royal Charters under which the Society has been governed for more than three hundred years".

[7] When Hertha Ayrton was nominated for fellowship in 1902, her candidature was turned down on the basis that as a married woman she had no standing in law.

Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson were duly elected in 1945, after a postal vote amending the Society's statutes to explicitly allow women fellows.

Of the approximately 1,600 living fellows and foreign members in 2018, 8.5 per cent are women compared to 0.4% in 1945, according to a historical research project conducted by Aileen Fyfe and Camilla Mørk Røstvik.

[369] From the beginning of the practice of British royal patronage in the 18th century,[370] the reigning monarch of Great Britain (and since 1801 that of the United Kingdom), starting with King George I,[371] has always served as patron of the Society.