The society was founded in 1911, under the name of the Biochemical Club. An informal preliminary meeting on 21 January 1911 at
University College, London was organised by John Addyman Gardner The name formally changed to the Biochemical Society in 1913, with Hopkins being appointed the first chair. The three earliest women members, elected in 1913, were
Ida Smedley, who became the first female chair of the society,
Harriette Chick and
Muriel Wheldale. In the early years eight annual meetings were generally held, predominantly in London, but also in Oxford, Cambridge,
Rothamsted, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere. In 1949, the society organised the first International Congress of Biochemistry, in Cambridge, before the foundation of the
International Union of Biochemistry in 1955. Plimmer was the society's first historian; his 1949 history is described by the American science historian
Robert E. Kohler as an "important primary document" for the early history of biochemistry in the UK, and in particular for why the society's founding members chose to separate from the older
Physiological Society. An updated history was published in 1969 by
Richard A. Morton. The report proposes using the term "biochemistry" as a shorthand to include molecular biology as well as biophysics. In 1990, the headquarters of the society moved to
Portland Place, and in 2005, to modern offices in Procter Street, Holborn. In 2009, the headquarters moved again to Charles Darwin House, Roger Street, sharing premises with the
Society for Experimental Biology,
British Ecological Society and the
Royal Society of Biology. The society's past presidents are Sir
Hans Kornberg (1990–95), Sir
Philip Randle (1996–2000), Dame
Jean O. Thomas (2001–5), Sir
Philip Cohen (2006–8), Sir
Tom Blundell (2009–12),
Ron Laskey (2012–14), Sir
David Baulcombe (2015–17) and Sir
Peter Downes (2018–21). ==Awards==