Royal Society of Arts

• 1. Introduction

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  The Royal Society of Arts began in 1754 with a gathering at Rawthmell's Coffee House, on Henrietta Street in Covent Garden. William Shipley and ten others attended. Among them was Stephen Hales, who had introduced Shipley to Viscount Folkestone and Lord Romney. Both noblemen were in the room, and they became the society's first presidents and earliest patrons.

  The group's stated mission was to "embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine art, improve our manufacturers and extend our commerce". It also spoke of easing poverty and securing full employment. That is a huge brief for a handful of men in a coffee house.

  So how did a body with such a broad promise go about keeping it? What did it offer to make strangers invent, plant and draw? Which lasting institutions trace back to its meetings? And who belongs to it today, more than two and a half centuries later?

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• 2. Prizes and Premiums

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  In 1753, a year before that coffee house meeting, Shipley wrote proposals arguing that prizes and premiums could boost industry and promote innovation. The idea had a precedent. The Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufacturers and other Useful Arts had already offered rewards, and the new London society copied its approach.

  The Premium Award Scheme that resulted lasted for 100 years. Challenges were published in advance, and winners received medals or, in some cases, money. The categories were Agriculture, Polite Arts, Manufacture, Colonies and Trade, Chemistry and Mechanics.

  Eighteenth-century fears about deforestation and a possible shortage of timber produced one of the scheme's most striking results. Medals went to those who planted the most trees each year. The society's historian Anton Howes estimated that the medal-winners "planted at least sixty million trees". He added that this count ignores the many losing entrants, and the wider aim of making tree-planting fashionable.

  Machinery earned premiums too. One winning design was an extendable ladder to help firefighters, which has stayed in use with few changes. In 1823, Augustus Siebe won the Vulcan medal for an improved screw threading tool. The scheme originally ruled out premiums for patented solutions, though the society still offers premiums today.

  The Polite Arts category covered "painting, drawing, sculpture, die-sinking, designs for manufactures, and... literature". The society also paid premiums to encourage the acquisition of artistic materials such as dyes and colors. Young people were rewarded as well. Edwin Landseer won a silver medal at the age of 10 for a drawing of a dog.

  Modern recognition takes the form of three medals: the Albert Medal, the Benjamin Franklin Medal and the Bicentenary Medal. Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking and Sir Frank Whittle are among the winners. Whittle appears again on a very different roll of honour, one that the society began in the twentieth century.

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• 3. Mother of Institutions

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  In 1755, the sculptor Henry Cheere led members of the society in an attempt to found an independent academy teaching painting and sculpture. Artists such as Cheere and William Hogarth already belonged to the society. Others took part in small private academies, including the St Martin's Lane Academy.

  Cheere's attempt failed. Yet the Royal Academy of Arts was finally established more than ten years later. Its founding document, called an Instrument, was almost identical to the one Cheere and the society had drawn up in 1755.

  In 1760, the society hosted the first exhibition of contemporary art. Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds were among the exhibitors. Both became founder members of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768.

  A photography exhibition in 1852 had a similar knock-on effect. It led directly to the creation of the Photographic Society of London in 1853.

  In the nineteenth century, Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Henry, George Wallis, Charles Dilke and other society members organized a major event. This was the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. It was conceived as a celebration of modern industrial technology and design.

  Education followed. The society founded the National Training School for Music in 1876, a predecessor of the Royal College of Music. In 1882 it offered the first national public examinations. That work led to the RSA Examinations Board, which now sits within the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations Board.

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• 4. Projects Beyond Prizes

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  A red terracotta plaque outside a former home of Lord Byron started one of Britain's most familiar street customs. The society devised a scheme to mark links between famous people and buildings, and that Byron plaque was the first. The house has since been demolished.

  The society put up 36 plaques. In 1901, responsibility passed to the London County Council, which changed the colour to the blue we know now. The Greater London Council took over later, and English Heritage most recently. Similar schemes now run in all the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.

  In 1929, the society bought the entire village of West Wycombe. After extensive repairs, it conveyed the village by deed to the National Trust.

  The 1980s brought a campaign about attitudes. Working with the Comino Foundation, the society set up a Comino Fellowship Committee. Its aim was "to change the cultural attitude to industry from one of lack of interest or dislike to one of concern and esteem". That led to a joint government and industry initiative that marked 1986 as Industry Year. The society and the foundation provided core funding of £250,000. This persuaded the Confederation of British Industry to raise £1 million and government departments to provide £3 million.

  In July 2008, the society became a sponsor of an academy in Tipton, which opened in September 2008. A new building for the school was completed in September 2010. In 2021 the school was no longer associated with the society. Six schools make up the RSA Family of Academies, all in the West Midlands, and Whitley Academy is one of them.

  Past projects ranged widely. They included delivering fresh drinking water to the developing world, and rethinking intellectual property from first principles to produce the Adelphi Charter. Others investigated schemes to manage international migration, and tested the feasibility of a UK-wide personal carbon trading system. The society still promotes inclusive design. It also works with artists on environmental sustainability, through WEEE Man in the past and the Arts and Ecology project now.

  Since October 2019, the society has hosted TEDxLambeth, a TEDx conference based in Lambeth. The newest effort is the 2025 Southern Creative Catalyst, led by fellows and partnered with several universities and organizations. It aims to strengthen the influence of creative industries across the Central South of England, and to develop and test theories of place-based growth.

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• 5. Royal Designers

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  The year 1936 saw the first Royal Designers for Industry named, with the letters RDI or, for non-British recipients, HonRDI. The honour is meant for the very few who, in the judgment of their peers, have achieved "sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for industry".

  In 1937, the holders formed The Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. Its aim was "furthering excellence in design and its application to industrial purposes". Membership is automatic for every RDI and HonRDI, and open only to them.

  The numbers are deliberately small. The Faculty currently has 120 Royal Designers and 45 Honorary Royal Designers, who are non-British citizens given the accolade of HonRDI. The number of designers who may hold the RDI distinction at any one time is strictly limited.

  The members come from fields as different as engineering, graphics, interaction, product, furniture, fashion, interiors, landscape and urban design. Past and present names include Eric Gill, Enid Marx, Sir Jonathan Ive, Dame Vivienne Westwood and Sir James Dyson. Sir Tim Berners-Lee is on the roll, as are Charles Eames, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Saul Bass and Raymond Loewy.

  Dieter Rams, Walter Gropius, Issey Miyake and Massimo Vignelli also appear. So do Alvar Aalto, Rei Kawakubo, Manolo Blahnik and Peter Zumthor.

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• 6. A House on John Adam Street

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  Early meetings of the society took place in "coffee houses or taverns, or wherever else was convenient". As membership increased, the need for a dedicated venue grew stronger. In 1774 the society moved into its current home on John Adam Street, near the Strand in central London.

  The brothers James and Robert Adam had designed the house for that purpose, as part of their innovative Adelphi scheme. The original building, at 6-8 John Adam Street, contains the Great Room. Its walls carry a sequence of paintings by the Irish artist James Barry, titled The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture. Portraits of the society's first and second presidents hang there too, painted by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds respectively.

  On the rear frieze of the building are the words "The Royal Society of Arts". The full name is much longer, and the frieze uses the short form.

  The society has since spread into 2 and 4 John Adam Street and 18 Adam Street. The first occupant of 18 Adam Street was the Adelphi Tavern, which appears in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. Its former private dining room has a magnificent Adam ceiling, with painted roundels by the school of Kauffman and Zucchi.

  A major refurbishment in 2012 by Matthew Lloyd Architects won a RIBA London Award in 2013. It also won a RIBA English Heritage Award for Sustaining the Historic Environment in the same year.

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• 7. Fellows and Leaders

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  Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx all belonged to the society. So did Adam Smith, Marie Curie, David Attenborough, Judi Dench and John Diefenbaker. Before 1914 they would have been called Members, since the title of Fellow only began that year. Today the society has fellows elected from 80 countries.

  Three routes lead in. Some prospective fellows are approached and invited in recognition of their work. Others are nominated or fast-tracked by existing fellows, by staff, or by partner organisations such as the Churchill Fellowship. Others apply themselves with references, and a panel of trustees and fellowship councillors reviews them. The stated test is alignment with the society's vision and values.

  Fellows may use the letters FRSA and gain access to the RSA Library and to other premises in central London. They pay an annual charitable subscription, and new fellows also pay a one-off registration fee. In Great Britain and Ireland, fellows can join regional activities in London, Central, North, Scotland, South East, South West, Wales and Ireland. Abroad, the RSA Global scheme has a notable presence in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

  The name itself changed over time. A Royal Charter arrived in 1847, and King Edward VII granted the right to use "Royal" in 1908. Before that, people called it the "Premium Society" and the "Society of Arts and Sciences".

  Anne, Princess Royal, is the current patron. She succeeded her father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as president in 2011. Loyd Grossman became chairman in 2024. David Joseph, a former chairman and chief executive of Universal Music UK, has been chief executive since September 2025.

  In September 2023, staff voted to strike for the first time in the organization's 270-year history. They said management had entered pay negotiations in "bad faith".

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• 8. Journals, Lectures and Animation

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  The Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce ran from 1783 to 1843. The Journal of the Society of Arts followed from 1852 to 1908, then the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts until 1987. Since then it has been the RSA Journal, published until 2025. Recent issues cover mobility, urbanism and environmental sustainability, alongside the arts. They argue that people in dense cities need places to escape into nature, and that design is worth more than movement and consumption.

  Over 100 keynote lectures, panel discussions, debates and documentary screenings take place each year. Events are free and open to the public, and many are live-streamed. Audio files in mp3 format and videos reach the society's website and YouTube page.

  Speakers have included Ken Robinson, Al Gore, Desmond Tutu, Steven Pinker, Brene Brown, Yuval Noah Harari and Dambisa Moyo. The choice of Presidential lecturer has drawn press interest. Björn Lomborg was chosen, and his book Cool It suggests that the imminent demise of polar bears is a myth.

  On the 14th of January 2010, the society and Arts Council England held a one-day London conference called "State of the Arts". Jeremy Hunt, then Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, spoke. So did his counterpart, Ben Bradshaw, who was then Secretary of State.

  Excerpts from the events became the RSA Animate series of 10-minute whiteboard animations on YouTube. The society produces and audio-edits them, while Fellow Andrew Park at Cognitive creates the artwork, a partnership that began in 2008. By 2011 the first 14 had gathered 46 million views, making it the top nonprofit YouTube channel worldwide. The very first animation was built from Renata Salecl's speech on her book about choice.

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