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The Society has only recently established a personnel department. Staff matters and pensions were dealt with by senior managers and accounts staff. It includes some personal reminiscences of some longer-serving staff members. \n\nThis series of twentieth century material relates mainly to general policy on staffing although it does include a small amount of information relating to individuals which may be sensitive. The RSA reserves the right to restrict access to this series of records.

James Barry was born in 1741 and died in 1806. In 1777 Barry submitted a proposal to the Society to decorate the Great Room of its new premises. He offered to paint the whole room without fee, in return for canvas, paints and models. He began painting in April that year, and although he continued to alter the paintings until 1801, they were exhibited in 1783 and '84, with the proceeds going to Barry.\n\nBarry was his own publisher, and produced numerous works explaining the The Progress's symbolism, later editions of which contained appendices railing against his critics.\n\nIn 1782, Barry was elected to professor of painting at the Royal Academy, receiving a salary in return for six lectures a year. Barry used the position to engage with role of the artist in society, but went too far in putting forth his opinions and, together with his 1798 Letter to the Dilettanti Society's attacks on the state of arts patronage in England, angered the Academy was expelled in 1799. His was the Academy's only expulsion until Professor Brendan Neiland resigned in July 2004.\n\nThe Earl of Buchan came to Barry's aid after he lost his salary, paying expenses and moving him to a larger house so that he could finish his final painting, The Birth of Pandora. James Barry died in February 1806, and his body laid in state in the Society's Great Room, before being interred in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Annual reports were issued as a statement of the Society's activities over the year, initially within the Journal (from 1852). By the 1980s the Annual Report was issued as a separate publication.

The lecture programme developed from the 1850s when the Society ceased the award of premiums for inventions. Lecture texts have traditionally been published in the Journal.\nRecords comprise correspondence about administrative arrangements for speakers and for publication of their texts and suggestions for topics for discussion

A series of lectures established in the late 1990s to explore more controversial issues beyond the main lecture programme.

Lecture series started in 1961 by John A Chambliss, Senior to commemorate the three outstanding American landscape architects Bradford Williams, Vaughan Cornish and Gordon Cooper. The name of the series 'Reflection Riding', is the name of a landscape park near Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

Awarded to annually to speakers deemed to have given the most interesting lecture over the preceding year. The medal was re-designed in 1948 by Percy Metcalf RDI

The Society organised annual receptions for Fellows and members of Council. Although essentially social events, they were used as an opportunity to raise funds.

Corresponding members were first elected in 1755. Benjamin Franklin being one of the earliest.

Contains the minutes and papers of the following committees; the Membership Committee, the Regional Activities Committee and the Fellowship Committee.

In his lecture 'Humour in Art' given to the Society in February 1949, H M Bateman had proposed a permanent National Gallery of Humorous Art, in which to display the many original drawings of published comic art, which currently languished in back offices, or in corners of studios, and never seen by the public. \nAs a tentative beginning the Society, at the suggestion of its Chairman of Council, Sir Harry Lindsay KCIE, CBE, organised a temporary exhibition of 162 drawings of the work of more than fifty artists, ranging from Rowlandson and Gillray, to Osbert Lancaster and E H Shepard, Emett and Giles. With the help of Kenneth Bird, the editor of Punch, H M Bateman and Anna Zinkeisen, RDI, the Society was able to arrange an interesting display in the Society's Library (located at this time in what is now the Benjamin Franklin Room), which was open to the public free of charge.\nEncouraged by the steady flow of visitors, by the end of the second week 7,091 people had visited the exhibition, including HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (President, RSA 1952-2011) and The Duchess of Kent. The Council decided to postpone the closing day until Saturday 13 August, and to extend the daily opening hours to 6.30pm on weekdays, including Saturdays and the August Bank Holiday. 14,000 people had passed through the doors by the end of the exhibition, and as there was still a great public interest, the Society was able to arrange for the exhibition to travel round the country from October 1949 to April 1950, showing at Hove, Coventry, Salford, Preston, Liverpool, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Lincoln, Hull and Leicester. It has been estimated that a further 40,000 people saw it in the course of this tour. The exhibition also received press coverage worldwide in newspapers and magazines such as Picture Post, Illustrated London News, The Spectator and two pages in the BBC Arabic News. Coverage also featured in television and cinema newsreels. But in spite of all this interest Bateman's original idea for a National Gallery of Humorous Art never came to life.\n\nRecords include correspondence and papers about arrangements for the exhibition, a catalogue and printed material and photographs

The Exhibition was held in the galleries of the Royal Academy and was organised jointly by the RSA and the Royal Academy. The objects of the exhibition were to 'impress upon the public the importance of good design in articles of everyday use; to show that British manufacturers, in co-operation with British artists, are capable of producing in all branches of industry, articles which combine artistic form with utility and sound workmanship; to encourage British artists to give to industry the benefit of their talent and training so that the objects with which we are surrounded in our daily lives may have an appearance which is not only attractive but is based on genuinely artistic principles'. The exhibition was held under Royal Patronage and with the active participation of HRH the Prince of Wales as President of the General Committee\n\nRecords comprise photographs and copy photographs of items displayed at the Exhibition

The Society held an exhibition of Indian art in 1962. It was opened by the Indian Prime Minister, Nehru. This series includes photographs of Nehru at the opening.

One of the original subject-based committees set up by the Society from 1754 to judge awards and premiums offered by the Society in the 'Polite. (ie Fine) Arts'\n\nSeries includes minutes of the committee, correspondence about awards and attendance at and structure of committee. Also includes examples of prints, drawings, engravings and other works of art submitted for award between 1758 and 1845. Additional correspondence to the committee is also included within the Guard Book series at PR/GE/110

This is a series of images were collected or purchased to support research work into the archive. They include copies of some prize-winning prints and drawings ( see also PR.AR/103)