After the petition was received, William Tilden, the President of the Chemical Society in 1905, led agreement from Council that the Petition should be acted upon and that the Society's byelaws should be modified to give qualified women all the privileges of fellows, except for the power to hold office or vote at meetings. However, when this was put to a vote, only 45 fellows showed up, and the motion was defeated. The subsequent discussions led to an eventual compromise in 1908 that women be admissible as "Subscribers" which would allow attendance at ordinary meetings, the use of the library, and the receipt of Society publications. Only 11 women joined as "Subscriber" in the period 1908 - 1919, when the category was abolished. After World War I, at an extraordinary general meeting on 8 May 1919, the Society under its then President James Dobbie resolved that women should be admitted on the same terms as men, and the corresponding byelaw was passed in 1920. The first woman fellow admitted was Ida Smedley (Mrs Maclean).