Article: The early days of peer review: five insights from historic reports

"The UK Royal Society has more experience of peer review than most publishers, with the practice used by its journals for nearly 200 years. Last month, the society unsealed more than 1,600 historic reports, dating from 1949 to 1954, and added them to its archive. The reports include assessments of high-profile papers.

The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions was the first journal to establish peer review, says Louisiane Ferlier, the society’s digital resources manager in London. “This is really the biggest archive you can have for any scientific journal,” she says."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03287-4