The Society was initially established as the Peterhouse and Corpus Historical Society in Michaelmas Term 1907, Corpus seceding in Michaelmas Term 1910 on setting up their own society under the aegis of George Geoffrey Gilbert Butler. Officers comprised a secretary, a treasurer, and, until 1956 two committee members. The pattern in early years was that ordinary meetings were held in the rooms of one of the members who served as chairman on that occasion. When speakers were invited from outside the college meetings were held in a public room (Reference Library, Upper Parlour, etc.) and hosted by a senior member of the society. From the late 1940s public rooms were more frequently employed but latterly meetings were usually held in the rooms of R. W. K. Hinton, and papers by undergraduates became the exception rather than the norm. Synopses of papers and of the ensuing discussion vary in length (until they formally ceased in 1968) but are much fuller from the late 1930s From time to time a debate took the place of a paper.