The Royal Society and the Prehistory of Peer Review, 1665-1965
The scholarship correcting the received account that peer review began with the Philosophical Transactions in 1665, and dating refereeing to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries instead.
Journal article · 2018Sources & confidence: High confidence
Checked 2 October 2026 · AI-assisted review
Author-repository bibliography and abstract; Royal Society chronology.
- Kent Academic Repository: The Royal Society and the prehistory of peer review
Authors, 2018, Historical Journal 61(4), pages 863–889, DOI, and abstract’s historical argument.
- Royal Society: The future of peer review in the 17th Century
Formalised refereeing introduced in 1832, distinct from the journal’s 1665 founding.
What this check doesn’t establish
- Abstract and institutional history checked, not a full independent audit of the article’s archival research.
Confidence applies to the scope above, not every claim made by the underlying source. How confidence works
Moxham and Fyfe distinguish the modern meaning of peer review from earlier editorial practices. Their abstract dates the term to the early 1970s and the emergence of refereeing to learned societies in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Royal Society’s own history dates systematic refereeing to 1832. Thus the journal’s founding in 1665 should not be treated as the beginning of the present-day peer-review system.
The essay’s simplified origin story needs this qualification. See the essay record.
In the essays
- You Can't Shame a Fork
Read the essay
Sources
Record history
Catalogue source: knowledge/works/moxham-fyfe-peer-review.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25