The first formal meeting was in 1736 in Salters' Hall when Benjamin Avery was elected chairman.
Their main aim was protecting the civil rights of Dissenters (i.e. fighting against the several statutes passed after the Restoration that imposed civil and religious disabilities on non-Anglicans).
They had a selected committee of twenty-one who met regularly at the King's Head Tavern on Poultry, London.
They tended to support private influence over more public forms of protest.
Their support was a leading cause for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828.