Our History

When the Royal Society of Arts was founded in 1754, the world was alive with possibility.

New ideas were transforming science, industry and public life. The challenge was turning imagination into progress.

Today, technology is more powerful than ever. What’s missing is the human capacity to use it wisely. We still need imagination, judgement and creativity to build a future worth living in.

That is why the Royal Society of Arts matters more than ever.

Centuries of Transformation

Our story begins in London, 1754. A group of creative reformers gathered in a Covent Garden coffee house with a shared conviction: that human ingenuity could change society for the better. 

From that conviction grew the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. This was built on a simple premise: that ideas matter more than status, and ingenuity should serve everyone. 

Within decades, the Society had changed more than most institutions manage in a lifetime. We pioneered the world’s first public examinations, admitting women as Fellows from day one, founding the Blue Plaque Scheme, and planting millions of trees across Britain long before sustainability became a word anyone knew. 

Fellowship for the Future  

Our Fellowship has never been a place of one kind of mind. Adam Smith, Edmund Burke and Karl Marx saw the world in entirely different ways. But all three, at some point, called the Society their home. 

From Benjamin Franklin exploring the frontiers of electricity to Nelson Mandela giving voice to hope, we have always drawn together people who set the world alight with their ideas. Add Tim Berners-Lee, Vivienne Westwood, Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking and David Attenborough to that list, and a pattern emerges. This is a lineage united not by ideology, but by imagination. 

The Student Design Awards (established in 1924) helped launch the careers of Jony Ive and fashion designer Betty Jackson. Fellow Matt McGrath designed the world’s first laryngoscope with a built-in camera, transforming medical diagnostics globally. The Albert Medal, awarded for outstanding innovation in service of humanity, has recognised Stephen Hawking for making physics accessible to the world, and Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert for leading the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. They’re what Fellowship looks like in practice. For the right person, it’s a launchpad