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William Shipley was an English drawing teacher and social reformer who, in 1754, launched what became the Royal Society of Arts.
William Shipley was born in 1715 in Maidstone and grew up in London. His father died when he was only three years old and William went to live with his maternal grandfather. At the age of 21, he inherited 500 pounds and used that money to practice as a painter and drawing teacher. It is at this time that he also joined the Northampton Philosophical Society, where he began his philanthropic life by raising funds to buy fuel for the poor. He worked in Northampton before returning to London. In 1755 he ran a private drawing school at the Strand. Many students under his charge subsequently became famous artists.”
Each year, her students successfully competed for the Society of Arts awards for textile design, with awards being given to the most promising child artist and sculptor.
The society was established at Rawthmells Coffee House in Covent Garden in London on March 22, 1754. It was first called the “Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce”.
In 1761, the society opened its London premises to the first large-scale public exhibition of domestic art ever staged in London.
William Shipley’s concept was to make Britain a center of intellectual advancement in the areas of arts and sciences. In the daily and evening papers, the society would have a notice announcing awards or prizes for different discoveries and inventions. For example, the Society offered bonuses for the discovery of cobalt and the breeding and curing of madder.
These were not just far-fetched concerns, but problems of Britain’s most critical industry, namely textiles. According to Colley, “Cobalt dyes a brilliant blue and the craziest was the main source of all red dyes until the 19th century. Quite simply, society wanted to allow Britain’s most important industry, its textile manufacturers, to dye their fabrics”. at home instead of sending it abroad.
The Society also tried to address the problem of obtaining enough domestic wood for shipbuilding. This was a matter of national defense for Great Britain. Without wood, the Royal Navy could not build ships. The Society carried out this purpose by establishing prizes for the cultivation of trees, such as chestnuts, oaks, firs and elms.
They even offered a premium to anyone who could develop a plan to transport breadfruit from the East Indies to the West Indies. Shipley raised the money for the company through subscriptions.
There is no doubt that Shipley’s contributions to both the economy of England and the security of England through the Society were substantial.
Although William Shipley had many students who became famous artists, such as William Hodges and Francis Wheatley, he himself was not remembered for his artwork. However, Shipley was a groundbreaking inventor in his own right. He came up with original ideas on how to provide cheap fuel for the poor, a floating light (Bouy) to save those lost at sea, a way to establish new species of fish in the ponds of England, and possibly the strangest thing about all. , a method of lining shoes with aluminum foil to keep them dry.
This quote might help shed some light on the following question: Why was Shipley so important historically?
“Shipley’s life included in its span the rise of English commercial self-confidence that Defoe celebrated and Napoleon feared, the spectacular first stage of the Industrial Revolution from the flying shuttle to steam-powered cotton mills, the flourishing of the English genius in the arts from Hogarth to Turner, and the growth of English philanthropy from the first county hospitals to Hannah More’s ‘Age if Benevolence'”.
In the making of these many momentous developments, credit Mr. Shipley for helping to establish the role of private organizations in serving the public; the Crown of England was so preoccupied with war and economic dealings that it had few resources to further improve the culture at the time. “Just by existing, the society challenged the way the British state was organized. To begin with, by taking on certain tasks, they underscored how much the state was leaving undone.
Today, with some 27,000 fellows developing networks to find innovative practical solutions to the most pressing social problems affecting our communities today, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce often it is called simply The Royal Society of Arts, and its members as Fellows of the RSA (FRSA). Recognition of the Royal Society of Arts’ immense contribution to society over the past 250 years recently included a Royal Garden Party hosted at Buckingham Palace by HM The Queen, the issue of commemorative stamps by the Royal Mail and a series of 5 radio shows broadcast on bbc radio 4.
The Royal Society of Arts archive is filled with contributions from such notable figures as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Stephenson, William Hogarth, Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Chippendale, Karl Marx, William Wilberforce, Joseph Hume , Michael Faraday, Rowland Hill, Edwin Lutyens, Joseph Banks, Robert & James Adam, and Joshua Reynolds.
In 1990 the RSA completed the restoration and conversion of its Georgian vaults. These are now the center of the Society’s conference facilities and include a distinctive restaurant for Fellows.