Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society

[3] a prominent Quaker business[4] family of Falmouth, founded the Cornwall Polytechnic Society,[5] to promote the ideas and inventions of the workers in their Perran Foundry.

[7][8] In the same year the Polytechnic Hall was built, at 24 Church Street, Falmouth, being originally used for “objects connected with the sciences, arts and literature”, but not for theatrical purposes.

[11] The Society benefitted from the availability of "star" scientific and technical speakers in its Lecture Programmes, thanks to the network of friends of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S.

The Society has had many notable presidents including the novelist Howard Spring who lived in Falmouth from 1947 to 1965 and served for eight years.

A Community-led campaign to "Save Our Poly" produced a revitalisation of the Society, which now (2012) supports a varied programme of Films, Plays, Comedy, Talks, Artistic exhibitions and Local History.

In 2012, the Society is benefitting from the relative health of the local Falmouth economy, and from the emergence of the nearby Tremough campus of the Combined Universities of Cornwall.