The RSA hosts the finale of London 1853: Celebrating the 160 years since the founding of the Royal Photographic Society at the RSA

RSA Fellows will swarm London this weekend along with members of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) and close out a 24-hour long photo shoot at the RSA - where the  RPS was founded in 1853.

The Society of Arts has been described as England's fairy godmother for its benefactions to arts and manufactures in the 19th century. A celebrated Secretary of the Society, Peter Le Neve Foster, was associated with many of them contributing his considerable expertise as a photographer and writer on photography...

Be sure to follow organisers @delbarrett @markaphill from @the_RPS and @michaelambjorn from @theRSAorg for updates throughout the weekend.

The hashtag for the event is #L1853 (please do use that if you Instagram as well) – and if you’re taking pictures of things that originated at the #theRSA, then do post them to the relevant places such as for example Open Plaques and the RSA Flickr Group. We’ll tweet the best ones from @thersaorg as we go along. The RPS is also organising a range of competitions.

RSA Journal article on Peter Le Neve Foster and photography

Please see the Royal Photographic Society website for more information about the event - and if you'd like to learn more about the RSA and its involvement with photography, check out this article from the Journal (big thanks to Susan Bennett from the Shipley Group, who dug it out from the archive).

You can also read the original handwritten notes from the RSA meetings in 1853 that led to the founding of the society on the RSA Flickr Group - and we've got plenty more in the RSA Archive if you are interested (big thanks to our archivist, Eve, for pulling the notes out).

Michael Ambjorn is Head of Fellowship – Follow @michaelambjorn