Annual Review 2007-2008 - The Royal Commonwealth Society

Building on the past,
creating the future
RCS 1868–2008: Celebrating the 140th anniversary
great want has often been felt by gentleman connected with our several colonies for
‘A some meeting place, some centre of attraction where they might resort on their arrival,
and where they might obtain the latest intelligence from their own part of the world, and place
themselves in communication with other gentlemen connected with their own and other
colonies, and with them concert such measures as should tend to the interest of all.’
So declared Viscount Bury upon the formal creation of a colonial society in 1868. 1
The idea of a colonial institution had
been pitched a year earlier, over dinner in
London, by the prominent Australian, Sir
Charles Nicholson. However, the
proposal was not formally taken up until
the following year when A R Roche,
Hugh E Montgomerie and Viscount
Bury called a meeting by public
advertisement to consider the
formation of a colonial society. At the
meeting, held on Friday 26 June 1868
at Willis’s Rooms in King Street, St
James, Bury was voted into the chair
and the meeting’s motion
unanimously approved.
In June 1869, with the approval
of the Queen, the Society received
its first Charter and became known
as the Royal Colonial Society. This
title was altered to the Royal
Colonial Institute in 1870
following complaints that the
initials could be confused with those of
the Royal College of Surgeons. 2
An astonishing evolution
In 1968, the organisation celebrated its
centenary. RCS records show that 1,181
people who were members in 1968
remain members today. This remarkable
figure evidences the continuing
attachment to the RCS felt by many. It is a
loyalty which has remained throughout a
truly astonishing evolution from the
founding of the Colonial Society of 1868
to the Royal Commonwealth Society of
today.
2008 marks the one hundred and
fortieth anniversary of the RCS. This
significant milestone will be celebrated by
a range of events and projects to be held
Doctoral Student Ruth Craggs writes:
1 Reese, T.R. (1968) The History of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford University Press, London. (p. 14)
2 Reese, T.R. (1968) The History of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford University Press, London.
over the course of the
year, under the theme
‘Building on the past,
creating the future’.
They will include the
Annual General
Meeting which will, this
year, be held on the
anniversary of the
Society’s formation, 26
June, and will be followed
by a champagne reception
and ‘birthday’ cake. 16–30
June will also see an
exciting photographic
exhibition in the gallery
space of the Club which will
display images spanning the
evolution of the RCS.
The Royal Commonwealth
Society Library (1928)
My research (Geography Department, University of Nottingham) is concerned with the
evolution, in the three decades following World War II, of ideas about the modern
Commonwealth. My research uses the Royal Commonwealth Society as a site through
which to understand the debates over what the Commonwealth could and should be
in the future. By looking at the lectures and events held at the Society, as well as the
travels of members of staff, I follow the evolution from imperial visions to those
embracing diversity and difference, although my work also reveals some continuity
between past and present visions, often in unexpected places. My work has involved
extensive use of the RCS archives in Cambridge University Library, alongside oral
history interviews. I have drawn both on material published by the Society (for
example United Empire and the Commonwealth Journal) and unpublished papers.
Records of committee meetings, accounts of trips abroad and photographs of events
at the headquarters provide a rich record of the Society’s history, and, through that, of
the evolution of ideas of Commonwealth itself. Though it has often been dusty, dirty,
and painstaking work it has also been intriguing and compelling, revealing the myriad
of characters, ideas and spaces involved in imagining a modern Commonwealth.
www.rcsint.org
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