Henry Hitchings

Science and philanthropy meet in the Royal Society of Arts

Its projects may have been ridiculed occasionally, but the Society has always been a force for good, as Anton Howes demonstrates

‘The Distribution of Premiums in the Society of Arts’ by James Barry , 1777-84. Bridgeman images

What does Jony Ive, the designer of Apple’s iPhone, have in common with Peter Perez Burdett, the first Englishman to produce aquatints, and Ann Williams, a postmistress who bred silkworms at her home in 18th-century Gravesend? The answer is that they all received awards from the institution known today as the Royal Society of Arts. Ive bagged a £500 travel bursary for creating a futuristic telephone nicknamed the Orator; Burdett earned £100 for a detailed map of Derbyshire; and Williams collected a 20-guinea prize for her observations about the lepidoptera she mistakenly called ‘dear little innocent reptiles’.

As Anton Howes demonstrates in this lucid and scrupulously researched history, such bounty is the raison d’être of the RSA. But the purpose of this 266-year-old institution is not widely understood. One misconception is that it is preoccupied with art. In reality, as Howes explains, it resembles a ‘subscription-funded national improvement agency’. Yet the multifarious nature of its activities has long been a gift to the satirically minded.

Its founder William Shipley inadvertently set the tone, proposing vast schemes and wacky ones — on the one hand a way to increase the national supply of fish, on the other a means of damp-proofing shoes using tin foil. A Victorian contributor to Punch could pretend that the Society’s programme of forthcoming events included lectures on pickles, torpedoes and polygamy.

Punch pretended that the Society’s programme included lectures on pickles, torpedoes and polygamy

The origins of the Society (which didn’t become ‘Royal’ until 1908) lie in what Howes describes as ‘the redirection of private interests to the benefit of the public’. Shipley was a benevolent, cultivated introvert who collected coins and liked fiddling with barometers. He hung around in London’s coffee houses, and as he tuned into their intellectual buzz he began to think about setting up a similarly energetic community.

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