When it was founded, by a group of Manchester businessmen, it was addressed by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the African explorer.
[5] Throughout its history the Society has organised an annual lecture series providing free public talks on a range of topics from September to June.
[7] Each year, the Society provides Bursaries to enable postgraduate Geography Students to attend conferences.
Its Map Collection (totalling over 2,000) from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries covers Africa, various continents as well as admiralty charts and other ephemera.
The Society’s Atlas Collection (on loan to the John Rylands Library, Manchester) dates from 1701.