Open House London; Upcoming events; RSA Archive staff changes

To begin with an apology for the long gap since our last posting!

The RSA will as usual be participating in Open House London- Architecture Up Close which takes place over the weekend of the 20-21st September. The House will be open to the public on Sunday 21st September from 12pm to 5pm (last admittance 4.30pm). As part of the event Dr David Allan, RSA Honorary Historical Adviser and Chair of the William Shipley Group will be giving a talk guiding visitors through the series of paintings, ‘The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture’, which are in the RSA’s Great Room and were painted by James Barry between 1777 and 1784. Due to our involvement in this event there will be no ordinary RSA Open House in September.

There are a couple of upcoming events which we would like to draw your attention to:

An exhibition to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Scott Russell (1808-1882) opened on 22nd May and will run until 20th November 2008. The Exhibition is being held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, Westminster and is open Monday-Friday 9.30am-5.30pm. Scott Russell was a Member of the Society and became Secretary in 1845.

We would also like to give advance notice of the Samuel Johnson Tercentenary celebrations which will be taking place in 2009. Various events have been planned for next year by the Samuel Johnson Tercentenary Committee and the RSA will be participating in them. Samuel Johnson was one of the Society’s early Members and took a great deal of interest in the Society, attending meetings and participating in debates. Further details of RSA participation in these celebrations will follow in the coming year.

There will soon be some staff changes in the RSA Archive team. Firstly we will be welcoming a new member of the team, Amy-Jo Bransfield, who will be joining the department in the newly created position of Assistant Archivist and Records Manager. Amy is in the process of completing an MA in Archives and Records Management at University College London and joins the RSA on 1st October.

In addition the Archive and Records Management Trainee, Sophie Cawthorne, will be leaving the RSA on 19st September in order to begin an MA in Archive and Records Management at the University of Liverpool. We shall be very sorry to lose Sophie, but wish her all the best on her course and in her future career, and we look forward to welcoming her replacement Phoebe Fox-Bekerman on 22nd September. As a result of the changeover we will not be able to accommodate researchers in person between 24th September and 7th October, although we can be contacted as usual via letter, e-mail or telephone during this period. Normal service will resume from 8th October. For further details about how to arrange appointments please see the main RSA Archive page on our website.

Finally we would like to apologise for the disappearance of the archive catalogue from the RSA website which occurred as a result of the new website being launched in May. We hope that the catalogue will be reinstated shortly, but in the meantime please feel free to contact the RSA Archive with any questions relating to the catalogue.

David Livingstone letters; William Shipley Group events; Visitors to the RSA Archive; new opening hours

Two letters sent to the Society from the missionary and African explorer David Livingstone (1818-1873) have recently been digitised as part of Livingstone Online. Livingstone Online, funded by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL and the Wellcome Trust, aims ‘to use the potential of electronic publishing to make available an online edition of the medical and scientific correspondence of David Livingstone’. The website provides transcriptions of Livingstone’s correspondence alongside high resolution images of the original manuscripts.

The letters were both addressed to Peter Le Neve Foster (1809–1879), who was Secretary of the Society from 1853 until his death. The letters dated December 1864 and February 1865 concern Livingstone’s requests for information on the ivory market with reference to a lecture by Richard Owen delivered to the Society in 1857.

A joint meeting will take place on Tuesday 13 May between the William Shipley Group and the Georgian Group. The lecture “James ‘Athenian’ Stuart and the Society of Arts” by Dr Kerry Bristol, Director of the Centre for Architecture and Material Culture at the University of Leeds, will look at Stuart’s close connections with the Society of Arts. The event will take place at 6.30pm at The Georgian Group, 6 Fitzroy Square, London. Tickets are £10 each. Please book via the Georgian Group’s website.

Readers of this blog may be interested to know about some of the visitors the RSA Archive has received since the beginning of the year. In addition to researchers and academics, the Archive has also welcomed a number of visits from other members of the archive profession. While our collection of historically important records is always of great interest to visitors, our strong rooms (constructed as part of the Heritage Lottery funded project between 1997 and 2002) are of particular interest to those within the profession, as they meet the relevant British Standard for the storage of archives.

Recent visitors have included Liz Wilson, Archivist to the illustrator Quentin Blake, who is one of the RSA’s RDI’s (Royal Designer for Industry). The picture below shows the 1988 Christmas card designed specifically for the Society by Blake.

We also welcomed Professor Robert McWilliam and Archivist Carol Morgan, both of the Institution of Civil Engineers. They had particular interest in our collection of papers written by the engineer and naval architect, John Scott Russell (1808-1882) who became Secretary of the Society in 1845. Professor McWilliam, who is also a Fellow of the RSA, is working on an exhibition to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Scott Russell’s birth which is planned to open later this year at the Institution.


The RSA Archive was also involved in an event at the start of the year to commemorate the 302nd anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. The lecture ‘Heritage and Learning Beyond the Classroom’, held as part of RSA Thursday and in conjunction with Benjamin Franklin House, was held on 17th January. Speaker Barry Sheerman MP, Chair of the Education and Skills Select Committee, discussed the importance of teaching young people about our cultural heritage (with particular reference to Franklin) and the benefits this can have in terms of citizenship. The lecture was chaired by Dr Marcia Balisciano, who is Director of Benjamin Franklin House.

The RSA Archive provided a display for visitors to the lecture including letters from Franklin to the Society and material showing how archives can be used as resources for the teaching of citizenship. Franklin became a member of the Society in 1756 and was very actively involved during the years he spent living in London. The picture above shows a plaster cast of Franklin by Jean-Jacques Caffieri which was presented to the Society in 1791 by Pahin de la Blancherie and is displayed in the Benjamin Franklin room within the RSA House.


Lastly, we regret that due to internal obligations and pressure on staff time we are now operating revised opening hours. The RSA Archive is open to the public Wednesday to Friday from 9.30am to 4.45pm by appointment only.

One hundredth anniversary of the RSA becoming 'Royal'; William Shipley Group events; new research on sculpture uses RSA Archive

January 2008 marks the hundredth anniversary of the RSA becoming the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The minutes of the Council meeting on 27th January 1908 (reference AD.MA/100/12/200) record that King Edward VII, who was then Patron of the Society, had granted permission for the use of the prefix ‘Royal’ in its title. It then states that 'it was resolved that the Secretary be instructed to take all the necessary steps for prefixing the word "Royal" to the title, whenever the title is used'. A short notice was also published in the newly entitled Journal of the Royal Society of Arts on January 31st 1908 Volume 56.

It was not however recorded in the minutes who had made the initial suggestion to apply to the King for the use of the prefix 'Royal'. The Society had possessed a Royal Charter since 1847 which amongst other things established the Council as the governing body of the Society. There is no reason given in the Council minutes as to why the use of the prefix ‘Royal’ was not sought at that time. ‘The History of the Royal Society of Arts’ by Sir Henry Trueman Wood, published in 1913, notes that the granting of the Royal Charter in 1847 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the RSA’s history. After this point greater emphasis began to be placed on lectures and the reading of papers, the Journal commenced publication in 1852 and the Society started ‘a fresh career of usefulness’.

A joint meeting between the William Shipley Group and the Johnson Society of London will take place on Saturday 12 January. ' "The Wider Range of Knowledge": Johnson, the RSA and the Adelphi revisited', will consider Dr Samuel Johnson's connections with the RSA. The event will take place at 2.30pm at Wesley's Chapel, 49 City Road, London.

Please contact Susan Bennett on susan@bennett.as for further details, and visit the William Shipley Group website for information about more upcoming events.

We were pleased to receive a copy of an article from the Sculpture Journal by David Wilson, Director of the Wordsworth Centre The article, ‘New information from the Society of Arts: Roubiliac’s model of Hercules and Atlas, and Nathaniel Smith’s model of St Andrew after Duquesnoy’, draws upon research undertaken last year by Mr Wilson in the RSA Archive. We hold two letters by Louis Francois-Roubiliac (1702-1762), which Mr Wilson reports were previously unknown to scholars in this field. The above work, Beasts, by Nathaniel Smith, a pupil of Roubiliac's, is certified as being by Smith in one of the letters.

RSA Archive closure over Christmas; success of Adam brothers exhibition

The Archive will be closed for Christmas and New Year from Monday 24th December until Wednesday 2nd January. Season's greetings to all our researchers.

We were pleased to hear from Sir John Soane's Museum that the Vaulting Ambition exhibition which we featured in our 10th October blog entry has been very successful, with over 10, 500 visitors by the end of November. The exhibition will go on to travel to other venues in 2008, the first being Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum in April and May.

22 November closure; new Adam brothers exhibition; William Hunter conference

The Archive is now open as usual, by appointment, following the recent staff changes, but an internal RSA event means that we will be closed on Thursday 22 November.



Shown above is a view of the Adelphi and the Thames by Agostino Brunias, one of the items on display in a very interesting exhibition on the lives and work of the Adam brothers, who were responsible for many wonderful 18th century buildings including the RSA's House. This has recently opened at Sir John's Soane Museum; entitled Vaulting Ambition, the exhibition runs until 12 January 2008 and entry is free of charge. It includes an item on loan from the RSA Archive, an Adelphi lottery ticket issued by the Adam brothers to raise funds when they were hit by the impact of a general financial crisis whilst attempting to complete the Adelphi development.

A forthcoming conference, William Hunter and the Art and Science of Eighteenth Century Collecting, is to take place at the University of Glasgow from 8-10 November 2007. This forms part of the bicentenary celebrations of the founding of the Hunterian Museum. For further information and to register see the University's History of Art Department news pages. Hunter (1718-1793), renowned as an anatomist and physician, was also a member (what we would now term a Fellow) of the RSA.

James Barry news; London Open House details; accessibility of the Archive in September

This is a somewhat delayed posting, but a longer one than usual which we hope will compensate!

We begin with two items of news concerning James Barry (1741-1806), the Irish artist who created the sequence of paintings 'The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture' for the Great Room of the Society in the late 18th century. The paintings can still be seen there today, and another work we hold by Barry, the self-portrait shown above, will be shown at a major forthcoming exhibition, British Vision: Observation and Imagination in British Art, 1750-1950, to be held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent from 6 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

We have recently been made aware of a most interesting contemporary source of information about the execution of the paintings in the Great Room. A letter-journal of Susan Burney (1755-1800), daughter of the music historian Charles Burney and sister of the novelist and dramatist Fanny Burney is currently being transcribed for publication as part of The Susan Burney Letters Project and we have been alerted to an account in this, over 1,000 words in length, of a meeting which Burney had with Barry on 26 October 1779, including a trip to see the work on which he was then engaged:

'Thence he carried us to the Great Room belonging to the Society for Encouraging Arts & Sciences in John St Adelphi, where we saw those pieces which he has more finished, tho' no part of his design is yet compleatly executed. The Progress of Society & Cultivation is his subject, which is comprized in 6 distinct pieces. The Room for which it is intended is a very large one, & when it is compleatly finished he designs to exhibit it —― the subject of the first Painting is Orpheus playing on his Lyre, not to attract Beasts, Trees, or stones, as Mr B. is desirous of setting allegory aside as far as it is in his Power, but to humanize the savage Inhabitants of Thrace, who are crowding round him & listening wth the most earnest attention —― Euridice is among these —― but is as yet but faintly sketched —― there is a great deal of Invention & Fancy in this Piece, & indeed in all the others, everything tending to explain & develop his subject'

Burney goes on to describe Barry's thoughts, and her own, about the paintings in some detail, for example:

'...the concluding Piece is however far advanced —― this we saw at His own House —― it represents Elysium —― In a Groupe sit the younger Brutus, Sir Thos More, Cato, the Elder Brutus, Socrates, & Epaminondas —― the idea of introducing Sir Thos More in company wth all these ancients Mr Barry says he borrow’d from some passage in Swift’s works but I know it not —― Locke, Boyle, Shaftesbury & many more compose another groupe —― in a 3d appear 2 angels unveiling an Orrery to Sir Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, &c —― above are Angels incensing the Creator, who however is invisible —― but the idea seems a little catholic...'

The original letter-journal is held at the British Library (ref. Egerton MS 3691, ff.19-20). We are indebted to Professor Philip Olleson of Nottingham University for bringing the passage to our attention and for kindly granting us permission to reproduce the above extracts from his transcript.

The RSA will as usual be participating in London Open House weekend, on Sunday 16 September, when we will be open from 12pm to 5pm (last admittance 4.30pm). As a result, there will however be no ordinary RSA Open House opening in September.

And last but not least, there will soon be a staff change in the RSA Archive team, as our current Archive and Records Management Trainee, Claire Batley, leaves us on 21 September to undertake an MA in Archives and Records Management at University College London. We shall be sorry to lose Claire, but wish her every success with the MA and her future career as a professional archivist and records manager. Claire's replacement will be Sophie Cawthorne, and we look forward to welcoming Sophie to the RSA on 24 September. As a result of the changeover we will not be able to accommodate researchers in person for the week beginning 24 September, although we can be contacted as usual via letter, e-mail or telephone during this period. Normal service will be resumed from 1 October. For further details about how to arrange appointments and contact us please see the main RSA Archive pages of our website.

July Open House change of date, Archive stock take and new funding for research

Our Monthly Open House provides an opportunity to take a self-guided tour of the RSA House free of charge. Open House takes place from 10am to 1pm (last admission 12.30pm) usually on the first Sunday of each month (excepting January). However, this date is subject to change and in July Open House will be held on the second Sunday, the 8th. Anybody interested is welcome to attend, there is no need to book in advance.

The Archive will undertake its annual stock take during July. As a result we will unfortunately be closed to researchers and for tours of the building throughout the period 9-20 July. We will however be able to receive enquiries by telephone, post and e-mail as usual, although responses may be a little delayed.

The William Shipley Group is an independent body with close links to the RSA (the Archivist sits as an observer on its committee) which amongst other things seeks to promote awareness of the Society and its archives. The Group has recently established a research and publication fund and has awarded a grant to Martyn Walker, Head of Department for Post Compulsory Education and Training at the University of Huddersfield. Martyn is researching the Huddersfield Mechanics Institution and the Society, and recently visited the Archive to look at minutes, correspondence and other papers that relate to this interesting area of the Society's activities. Mechanics institutions were a pioneering form of education for working people in the 19th century, and they and similar organisations were in due course invited to join the Society as part of what was called the Union of Institutions. The Union existed in this form only until the 1880s, but it led amongst other things to the establishment of the Society's examinations. The first of these to be held outside London were in Huddersfield, in 1857. We look forward to seeing the results of Martyn's research in due course.