Many members of legitimate learned societies were duped into thinking that they were being offered fellowships by a department of their own respected institution.

[5] The Society's apologist, the former embezzler Joseph Ostler alias C. Frusher Howard, described it as follows, in a letter dated December 1893:[6]"Its affairs are managed by a president, several vice-presidents, a numerous Council and two paid secretaries; its fellows and members are university graduates, Fellows of learned societies, authors, and others eminent in science, literature and art.

It holds periodical meetings for lectures etc., for the reading of original and interesting papers, for the promotion of new works, discoveries and inventions, and for the diffusion of useful knowledge; it also publishes a quarterly journal of its transactions.

[12] One of the academic papers published in 1884 by the Society was Some notes on the stage and its influences on the education of the masses, players and playgoers etc., by Henry Blau.

[33] Notwithstanding any position or duties retained in Cork, by the time he died Goold had lived in West Croydon for many years.

[34] The 1861 Census shows a married gentleman born in Marylebone called Henry Goold living in Pier Road, North Aylesford, Kent, with his wife Sarah, aged 35.

[38][39][40] Sturman and his wife owned the Holland Road premises and the Society, and accepted all its profits, using Goold's name and rank as bait to impress and convince new paying members.

The 1841 census finds Sturman, at six months the youngest of eight children, living with his parents at 25 East Road in Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, in the parish of St Leonard.

[42][43] By 1861 the family had moved a couple of doors along, to a room in number 4a Church Row, which was fairly crowded with artisan tenants.

[48] By 1881 there were eight children aged two to sixteen, of which the eldest was a civil servant clerk, and Sturman was still schoolmastering, although they had moved out of the school and were living at 68 Upper Tollington Park, Hornsey.

Their daughter Florence was a dead letter office clerk - a post which might have been useful at a Society which practised a form of pamphleting and received a great deal of returned mail.

She and her daughter Lucy Minnie were working from their nine-room house as secretary and clerk for their own private company, the nature of which is unknown.

[53] The fellow was permitted special insignia of which the price to the wearer is unknown, and which was described as "a very handsome gold cross surrounded by a laurel wreath and having appropriate emblems in the centre.

[56] Charles Farrar Forster (1848–1894) was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and first vicar of the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Beckwithshaw, North Yorkshire, England.

[53] Mr Fremersdorf, FRGS, of East Bourke, Victoria, Australia, was appointed Honorary Representative to Washington Territory for the SSLA in 1885.

[58] The Reverend John Botheras was principal of Stafford school, and wrote sermons and articles for Bible, Christian Magazine.

A fortunate member might receive a silver-plated bronze or gilt-bronze medallion, cast with a figure of Athena, goddess of wisdom and learning, dispensing laurel wreaths and surrounded by her scientific and artistic attributes (pictured above).

"[67] The society provided school examinations such as arithmetic, geography, history, grammar, drawing, Latin, French, algebra and bookkeeping.

[68] In 1887, nineteen out of the twenty candidates at St. Joseph's College, Weston Hall, Rugby passed the exam and received the Society's certificate.

[70] In 1890 at St Rose's Convent School, Stroud, its female pupils took part in a competition and exhibition of work which was posted to the Society's Kensington base.

The pupils took the Society's exams in nine subjects, including scripture, grammar, freehand and model drawing, French, theory of music, history and literature, with Hanman and Mackey winning Honours while Gertie McKay aged 12 received a certificate too.

He said the Society "examined some 50 schools a year, charging a fee from 2s 6d to 7s 6d per head for each pupil, but sometimes quoting wholesale rates and giving certificates.

"Auckland Star, 18 October 1886[5] It was understood that the Society's practice was to send out, along with the above note and the SSLA Journal, a proposal of fellowship already stamped with the acceptance of Goold himself, and with the recipient's name left blank.

After the first 1,000 places were filled, an unlimited number of remaining applicants were to be called Ordinary Fellows, and were to pay double the fees.

[5] The conclusion was as follows:"The Society seems, in short, to be founded on the continental system by which the right to use magic letters and titles, usually associated with degrees, can be purchased without examination.

[8] On 3 January 1894, The New Zealand Herald printed a rebuttal by the former embezzler and writer Joseph Ostler (1827–1905), alias C. Frusher Howard F.S.Sc.

"[2][6][74] Lorimer Fison was president of the anthropological section of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, and he received an offer of Fellowship from the Society which he declined.

[77] The International and the SSLA were not rivals: while his swindle was still functioning Tomie has written to Sturman in friendship, saying, "There is plenty of room for both of us, and though we work on somewhat similar lines, they need not be opposing ones.

[3][78] Sturman said that in 1892 the Society consisted of "1,500 men and women interested in learning and education" but that they were reluctant to continue to pay their guineas for membership, and that he "got as many as we can get out of them."

"[3] The Society was still awarding Certificates of Merit for, or in a small private girls' school in Leicester in 1916 when the Honorary President was J Misindsay (?)