Committee and Officers of the Royal Literary Fund (active 1790)

The Literary Fund was administered by a Committee of subscribers, who determined at their monthly meetings whether the authors who applied to the Fund were of sufficient literary merit to receive aid and decided the quantities of aid that they were given. The Committee also promoted and fundraised for the Fund and made decisions on its governance, although some of these latter functions were carried out by sub-committees. Applicants for aid often wrote to the Committee, collectively or individually, to plead their cases, particularly before the institution of the office of Secretary of the Literary Fund in 1836. In the early years of the Fund the Committee was overseen by a Council of former Committee members, but this body slowly reduced in importance until it lost its power to meet as a result of a drafting error in the amended Fund Charter of 1847. Details of the Committee’s business can be found in the Fund’s Minute Books (see Loan 96 RLF 2). These books also contain complete lists of who was present at each meeting.

The membership of the Committee could be quite large and volatile, with some men (the Committee was exclusively male from the Fund’s inception until the appointment of first woman, Rose Macaulay, in 1946) serving for a very short time and others for several decades. Presented below are lists of the Committee’s major officers – the President of the Fund and its Treasurers and Registrars – from 1790 to 1918. Full lists of all Committee members can be found in the Fund’s Annual Reports (see Loan 96 RLF 3).

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