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.
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