Civil science and technology associations have been widely springing up everywhere in Britain,especially the new industrial towns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Associations held various academic activities,organized and funded scientific research,which played an important role in promoting the progress of science and technology and the development of industrial society.Based on case study on British Association for the Advancement of Science and Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society by academic circles at home and abroad,development situation of British science and technology associations in the middle and late 19^th century is summarized,and a series of activities of associations participating in industrial and agricultural development and environmental health reform are systematically sorted out,while the promoting role of science and technology associations in the social development of Britain in the 19th century is explored.