Royal Commonwealth Society

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Royal Commonwealth Society
(RCS)
logo
founding 1868-6-36 in London
Seat The Royal Commonwealth Society, 40-41 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5JQ
motto "United Empire"
purpose To promote within our United Kingdom and Overseas the increase and spread of knowledge respecting the people and countries of the Commonwealth and their cultures by providing a central Commonwealth meeting place with cultural and social facilities for members.
Chair Linda Yueh (since 2018)
Employees 12
Website https://www.thercs.org/

The Royal Commonwealth Society ( RCS ) is a society of people and organizations that aim to improve the living conditions and prospects of all Commonwealth citizens. Through empowerment of young people, training and lobbying, the society promotes literacy, equality and inclusion as well as the environment for citizens of the 54 member states of the Commonwealth of Nations . The society is independent of governments and relies solely on donations for funding. At the same time, society can approach business or diplomatic circles directly and thus takes on a key role in pursuing its goals.

The RCS is organized as a non-profit company with Royal Charter with the charity no. 226748 (RC000469).

history

On June 26, 1868, a group of interested citizens formed a literary and scientific society, the Colonial Society , with the aim of better understanding the British colonies of the time. Among the founders were well-known personalities of the time, for example, George Keppel , Viscount Bury and first President of the Society, Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue an Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign and Colonial Ministry and the former Chancellor of the University of Sydney , Charles Nicholson . The beginnings were modest and sought the establishment of a reading room with a small library where one could discuss matters of the Colonies and the Empire.

Only one year after it was founded, Queen Victoria allowed the use of the title “Royal”. The company then changed its name to the Royal Colonial Institute in 1870 . The first Asian member to join was the son of the Japanese Prime Minister, Ji ju Sanjo, in 1872. The first African member was Samuel Bannerman from the Gold Coast in 1879 . Literary competitions on colonial topics from 1883 interested broader sections of the population. In 1885, after a number of addresses, the company found its temporary headquarters on Northumberland Ave. in London. In 1907, the Society's library, with 70,000 volumes, was considered the best in the British Empire on colonial subjects. The society's librarians had to defend themselves against attempts to move the library into the Colonial Institute.

From 1910 subsidiary companies were established in major British cities, the West Indies , Ceylon and India . At the same time, the library grew to over 100,000 volumes by 1914. Also in 1910, Evans Lewin took over as the Society's librarian, an office he would hold for 36 years and thus contributed significantly to the institution's worldwide reputation. The society survived the First World War and in 1922 was the first society to admit female members with all rights, and promoted a young and diverse membership. Access to the library remained open even during the chaos of war. In 1928 the name changes to Royal Empire Society (RES) and from 1931 allows Asians and people of color as full members.

Lewin was also able to maintain access to the library during the Second World War . After the closure of the Chatham House , London School of Economics and British Museum libraries in 1939, the RCS library was practically the only remaining library for the BBC or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office . The only exception was the German attack on April 16, 1941, in which a bomb devastated the building and destroyed several thousand volumes. A reduced but functioning library was offered again just a week later. The last repairs to repair the damage were not completed until 1956.

Three months after Ghana became the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from Great Britain in 1957 , the then Prime Minister and later President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah , visited England and gave a lecture to the Society. He became the first in a series of African leaders to honor society. Society became a center of diverse ideas and drafts, and provided leaders with a platform to fight apartheid. This also reflected the name change in 1958 to the Royal Commonwealth Society, under which the company has operated since then. Among these leaders after Nkrumah were Oliver Tambo , Thabo Mbeki , "Chief" Buthelezi and Desmond Tutu in the 1980s and Nelson Mandela in 1990. Kenneth Kaunda , then President of Zambia , gave a controversial speech in 1965 to the society in which he described the situation in what was then Rhodesia compared with Hitler's Germany and tried to justify the use of force.

1991 was also a year of disasters. After 123 years of uninterrupted opening, the RCS had to use its library to cover outstanding debts in the face of impending insolvency and thus lost a valuable cultural treasure. The library with all its treasures was dismantled and sold. Most of the holdings were transferred to the Cambridge University Library . Remnants were preserved on microfilm . The size of the collection was impressive. Approx. 300,000 books, 900 archive collections (manuscripts, diaries, letters, pictures, films, etc.) and over 125,000 photographs. Much of the building on Northumberland Ave. were sold for debt service.

In 2013 the Royal Charter is revised and renewed with the approval of the Privy Council . Society is no longer a membership organization, but is becoming a non-governmental organization . The society is adapting to the changed political landscape and celebrated the 150th anniversary in 2018 in the presence of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall , the society’s newly appointed vice-patroness.

  • Commonwealth Club, 25 Northumberland Avenue, Company headquarters from 1885 to 2013

  • Pall Mall with the Commonwealth House

  • David Howell speaking to the RCS on September 29, 2011

  • The then British Foreign Minister Hugo Swire with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Kamalesh Sharma on December 18, 2012 at the RCS

  • Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat at the RCS on July 21, 2014

organization

The governing body of the charity is the council, which is composed of:

  • the president of the company
  • the chairperson
  • the treasurer
  • up to twelve further trustees ("Trustees")

Members are appointed for four years and can be re-elected once. The council decides the strategic direction of the organization. In addition, they prepare the annual financial statements and ensure that bookkeeping is compliant.

In 2019, all of the Organization's Honorary Vice Presidents resigned from their positions, leaving only two, Karim Aga Khan IV and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations , Patricia Scotland .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Our History. In: Royal Commonwealth Society website. Retrieved April 21, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k unknown: Royal Commonwealth Society. Data for financial year ending 31 March 2019. In: Website of the Charity Commission for England and Wales . March 31, 2019, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Ruth Craggs: Situating the Imperial Archive: the Royal Empire Society Library, 1868-1945. (PDF) In: Journal of Historical Geography Volume 34, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 48-67. Elsevier, January 8, 2008, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Who we Are. Vision and mission. In: Royal Commonwealth Society website. Retrieved April 21, 2020 (English).
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t unknown: Ex libris: the destruction of a great commonwealth treasure. The Free Library. 1992 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. Apr. 23, 2020, April 23, 2020, accessed on April 21, 2020 .
  6. ^ John M. MacKenzie: Royal Commonwealth Society. The Royal Commonwealth Society Library truly takes the world as its oyster. In: Cambridge Digital Library website. Cambridge University Library, accessed April 21, 2020 .

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