was not contemporaneously referred to as a science fiction convention and was primarily a fundraiser for the London Massage and Galvanic Hospital, one of a number of such events held with other, non-science fictional, themes put on by the hospital's founder Dr. Herbert Tibbits. (The event not only failed as a fundraiser, but led to Tibbits' personal bankruptcy.)

The precise time and place of the first science fiction convention is a matter of some dispute. The idea and form was clearly anticipated in Robert Bloch's short story about