Stukeley befriended the antiquary Maurice Johnson and joined Johnson's learned society, the Spalding Gentlemen's Society, which is still based in Spalding, Lincolnshire. A 1714 letter indicates that Johnson recommended several books on British history to Stukeley, apparently at the latter's request; the suggested titles included Julius Caesar's "De Bello Gallico", John Milton's "The History of Britain", Robert Brady's "An Introduction to the Old English History", Peter Heylin's "Help to English History", and Richard Rowlands' "A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities concerning the most noble and renowned English Nation". Another letter to Johnson, this time from May 1714, reveals that Stukeley was assembling a series of chronological tables of all British kings since Brutus of Troy; following the medieval historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, Stukeley believed that the legendary Brutus was a real historical figure. In September 1716, he wrote an account of Richborough Castle, a Roman military fort in Kent. That same year, he described having made a model of the Neolithic/Bronze Age stone circle of Stonehenge. By May 1717, Stukeley had returned to London, living in Great Ormond Street. The reasons for his return to the city are not known, although it is perhaps due to his desire to once again be among the London intelligentsia. Once in the city he began to circulate within its antiquarian circles. At Mead's nomination, in early 1718 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, then under the presidency of the scientist Isaac Newton. Stukeley befriended Newton and visited him at his home on several occasions; he was part of a coterie in the society who supported Newtonian philosophy. Stukeley lectured to the society on a "fossil crocodile or porpoise" in 1719 (a plesiosaur now on display in the Natural History Museum, London), arguing that it was evidence for the Genesis flood narrative; in February 1720, he lectured to the society on female human anatomy, illustrated with drawings of a cadaver he had autopsied. Following Edmond Halley's resignation as society secretary, in November 1721 Stukeley put himself forward as a potential replacement; he unsuccessfully ran against Newton's favoured candidate, James Jurin. This upset some of Stukeley's friendships in the group and cooled his relationship with Newton for several years. Also in 1718, Stukeley joined the newly founded Society of Antiquaries of London and became its first secretary.