The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA) is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity (and on the building's frieze The Royal Society of Arts — see photograph). It was founded in 1754 and was granted a Royal Charter in 1847.
Charles Dickens, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Karl Marx, William Hogarth, John Diefenbaker and Stephen Hawking are some of the notable RSA's members and it has today more than 27,000 Fellows from 70 countries worldwide. The RSA's Medal winners include Nelson Mandela, Sir Frank Whittle, and Professor Stephen Hawking. The RSA Medals, named Albert Medal, the Benjamin Franklin Medal and the Bicentenary Medal, are still awarded.
The RSA members are still among the innovative contributors to the human knowledge, as shown by the Oxford English Dictionary which records the first use of the term "sustainability" in an environmental sense of the word in the RSA's Journal in 1980.
The RSA was granted a Royal Charter in 1847,[1] i.e. the right to use the term Royal in its name by King Edward VII in 1908.
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On the RSA building's frieze the The Royal Society of Arts words (see photograph) are engraved, although its full name is Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce. The short name and the related R(oyal) S(ociety) of A(rts) acronym are used more frequently than the full name.
The RSA's mission expressed in the founding charter was to "embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine art, improve our manufacturers and extend our commerce", but also of the need to alleviate poverty and secure full employment.
The RSA's Patron is currently HM Elizabeth II, the RSA's President is HRH The Princess Royal (who replaced her father, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 2011), its Chairman is Luke Johnson (businessman), and its Chief Executive is Matthew Taylor.
Being elected an RSA Fellow depends on having achieved (or demonstrating the potential to achieve) a contribution to society in a cultural or arts-related sphere.[3] The RSA states that, 'Fellows attach the letters FRSA after their name'.[4]
Originally modelled on the Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufacturers and other Useful Arts, the RSA in its early years offered prizes — which it called "premiums" — for people who could successfully achieve one of a number of published challenges. "Premiums" for a very wide range of challenges (including devising new forms of machinery and agricultural improvements, which included new ways to improve the cultivation of opium poppies etc.).
The famous Mutiny on the Bounty happened when Captain William Bligh tried for the first time to ship breadfruit from the East to the West Indies, to win a "premium" offered by RSA. The voyage has been subsequently repeated and this time he succeeded, and the RSA awarded him the prize.
In 1936, the RSA awarded the first distinctions of Royal Designers for Industry (RDI or HonRDI), reserved for "those very few who in the judgment of their peers have achieved 'sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for industry'".
In 1937 "The Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry" was established as an association with the object of "furthering excellence in design and its application to industrial purposes": membership of the Faculty is automatic for (and exclusive to) all RDIs and HonRDIs. The Faculty currently has 120 Royal Designers (RDI) and 45 Honorary Royal Designers (non-UK citizens who are awarded the accolade of HonRDI): the number of designers who may hold the distinction of RDI at any one time is strictly limited.
The Faculty consists of the world’s leading practitioners from fields as disparate as engineering, furniture, fashion and textiles, graphics, theater and film design. Early members include Eric Gill, Enid Marx, Sir Frank Whittle and numerous other household names.
The RSA house situated near the Strand in central London, had been purpose-designed by the Adam Brothers (James Adam and Robert Adam) as part of their innovative Adelphi scheme in 1774. The RSA building has expanded into adjacent buildings in the intervening years (2–6 John Adam Street, plus 18 Adam Street).
The original building includes the Great Room, which features a magnificent sequence of paintings by Irish artist James Barry titled The progress of human knowledge and culture. The RSA House is also available to hire by external clients, too, for conferences etc.
The first occupant of 18 Adam Street was the Adelphi Tavern, which is mentioned in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. The former private dining room of the Tavern contains a magnificent Adam ceiling with painted roundels by the school of Kauffman and Zucchi. The address was 8 John Street (now 8 John Adam Street).
The RSA devised a scheme for commemorating the links between famous people and buildings by placing plaques on the walls — these continue today as "blue plaques" which are administered by a range of government bodies. The first of these plaques was, in fact, of red terracotta erected outside a former residence of Lord Byron (since demolished). The Society erected 36 plaques until, in 1901, responsibility for them was transferred to the London County Council (which changed the colour of the plaques to the current blue) and later the Greater London Council and most recently English Heritage. Similar schemes are now operated in all the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
The Royal Academy of Arts was formed as the RSA's spin-off organisation in 1768 by Sir Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, two early members of the RSA, as a result of first exhibition of contemporary art.
The RSA's launching of the modern world's first public examinations in 1882 led to RSA Examinations Board (now included in the (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations Board).
In 1876 a predecessor of the Royal College of Music, the National Training School for Music was founded by the RSA, and the Society was instrumental in the preservation of West Wycombe, purchasing the entire village and handing it over to the National Trust.
In 1936, the RSA awarded the first distinctions of Royal Designers for Industry (RDI or HonRDI), reserved for "those very few who in the judgment of their peers have achieved 'sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for industry'".
In GB and Ireland, the RSA has offered some regional activities to encourage Fellows to interact with each other locally and to address local topics of interest. The UK Regions are: East of England, East Midlands, London, North East, North West, Scotland, South East, South West, Wales, West, West Midlands and Yorkshire; Northern Ireland, part of the UK, is treated, for historical reasons, as a single all-Ireland region — 'Ireland' — that includes the Republic of Ireland. The RSA also has a presence in Belgium (to increase its influence in Brussels) and, further afield, in Australia, India, Southern Africa and the USA.
The RSA runs a free public events programme which seeks to introduce new and challenging thinking. These are made freely available on its website after the event as mp3 audio files[5] and videos.[6] Recent lecturers include Michael Sandel, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Sir Ken Robinson, Don Tapscott, Alain de Botton, Al Gore, Anthony Grayling, Zarine Kharas (founder of Justgiving), Amir Aczel, and Chris Anderson.[7]
The choice of speaker for the recent annual Presidential lecture has been a matter of interest in the press.[8] Danish professor Björn Lomborg, was chosen; his latest book, Cool It, suggests that the imminent demise of polar bears is a myth. As president of the RSA, Prince Philip's first choice of speaker was Ian Plimer, professor of mineral geology at Adelaide University, but this was rejected as too controversial, as Plimer argues that the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is unproven.
On 14 January 2010, the RSA in partnership with Arts Council England hosted a one day conference in London called "State of the Arts".[9] A number of speakers from various dispclines from art to government gathered to talk about the state of the arts industry in the United Kingdom. Notable speakers included Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport and his counterpart Ben Bradshaw MP, who was then the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport. Notably, Jeremy Hunt stated that if the Conservative party won the next elections then government funding for the arts would be cut.[10]
The contents of speeches and books has additionally been transferred to the medium of (hand-drawn) cartoon animations through 14-part series of 10-minute animations and gained 46 million views[11] on the theRSAorg YouTube channel,[12] making it the no.1 nonprofit channel worldwide.
The first animation drawn by Andrew Park in the RSA Animate series was based on Renata Salecl's speech delivered for RSA on her book about choice.
The most recently drawn is based on a 500-page book by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist on the topic of the divided (human) brain.
In July 2008, the RSA became a sponsor of an academy in Tipton, The RSA Academy, which opened in September 2008. New buildings are currently under construction to designs by John McAslan and Partners.
Current projects include Arts and Ecology, Citizen Power, Connected Communities, Design and Society, Education, Public Services, Social Brain, and Technology in a Cold Climate.[13]
Past projects include delivering fresh drinking water to the developing world, rethinking intellectual property from first principles to produce a Charter (published as the Adelphi Charter), investigating schemes to manage international migration and exploring the feasibility of a UK-wide personal carbon trading system. It still promotes the practice of inclusive design, and is working with artists to communicate ideas about environmental sustainability (for example, through one of the RSA's past projects, WEEE Man, and currently through the Arts and Ecology project).
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