The Irish Literary Society was founded in London in 1892 by William Butler Yeats, T. W. Rolleston ,and Charles Gavan Duffy. Members of the Southwark Irish Literary Club met in Clapham Reform Club and changed the name early in the year. On 13 February they met again to form a committee. Evelyn Gleeson became secretary. Stopford Brooke gave the inaugural lecture to the society, on "The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue" (Bloomsbury House, 11 March 1893).