Three centuries of the RSA

Public talks / Video / Online

 -  | BST British Summer Time

RSA House and online via YouTube

  • Heritage
  • Arts and society
  • Social innovation

Join us to celebrate Anton Howes’s engaging and authoritative new history of the RSA - Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation.

For almost three centuries the RSA has played an important role in many of our major social reforms and innovations. It helped construct the public education system, encouraged the planting of more than sixty million trees, sought technological alternatives to child labour, and even once purchased and restored an entire village. And did plenty more in-between.

Drawing on exclusive access to a wealth of rare papers and artefacts from the RSA Archives, historian Anton Howes shows how this vibrant and singularly ambitious organisation, whose members have been drawn from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum (and include the founding fathers of liberalism, conservatism and communism, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke and Karl Marx) has evolved and adapted according to the spirit of the age. 

From its first meeting in 1754 in a Covent Garden coffeehouse, to today’s global community of 30,000 Fellows, join us to trace the RSA’s rich, and often surprising history of public-spirited improvement.

If you are joining us at RSA House for the event, please note, the talk will be followed by book-signing and complimentary drinks.

 

Please note, this event will be taking place both in-person at RSA House and streaming online. Please make sure to select the relevant ticket type when booking - thank you

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