Queen Elizabeth II Room

The Queen Elizabeth II room was originally the main drawing room of No. 2 John Adam Street, a private residence in the Adam brothers’ Adelphi complex.

Between 1832 and 1869 it was the office of The Equitable Gas Company. When the Society acquired the leasehold in 1957, it became our Council Chamber. It became the library in 1971/2 until it was moved to its current position on floor -2 in 2003 following structural repairs and restoration.

The room retains its classical Adam dimensions. The fireplace and door case came from Bowood House in Wiltshire, when a wing was being demolished. The leasehold for this part of the building was purchased by the RSA in 1957.

In May 2023, the room was renamed the Queen Elizabeth II Room, in honour of the late queen. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was our President from 1947 (as Princess Elizabeth) until 1952. She was our Patron following her accession until her death in 2022. She was the first female Patron of the Society.

Queen Elizabeth II was the latest of only three future monarchs to hold the position of RSA President, the other two being Edward VII and George V. Her inauguration as President marked the re-opening of the Great Room in RSA House for the first time since 1941 when its roof and floor had been damaged by a blast from a parachute mine. The work was completed just hours before the ceremony. In her opening speech, she noted Britain's role in the industrial revolution, but also its "legacy of squalor, misery and ugliness", reminding the RSA of its "duty to lead the world in finding the remedy".

Queen Elizabeth II and the RSA

Thereafter, the then-monarch visited RSA House on numerous occasions; attending exhibitions, award ceremonies and dinners. As President, she opened the meeting to begin organising the Festival of Britain of 1951, echoing the role played by her great-great-grandfather Prince Albert in initiating the Great Exhibition of 1851. She also opened the RSA's highly popular Exhibition of Humorous Art in 1949, which was held in what is now the Benjamin Franklin Room.

In 1958, we awarded Her Majesty the Albert Medal, for having "undertaken public engagements on a scale greatly exceeding that of any previous reign" to promote arts, manufactures, and commerce, by conducting overseas visits, touring industrial areas, and opening major infrastructure projects throughout Britain and the Commonwealth.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh succeeded Queen Elizabeth II as President until 2011. The current President is Her Royal Highness, Princess Anne the Princess Royal.

The room now contains both a bronze bust of the late Queen by Raphael Maklouf (1984), together with a display of photographs from the RSA’s archive that depict her long association with the RSA.

In 2003, before being named after the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this room was named after Robert Marsham, 2nd Baron Romney, a Kentish aristocrat.

Lord Romney was a founder-member of the Society of Arts in 1754, guaranteeing its finances until it was on a secure footing alongside his brother-in-law Viscount Folkestone. He became the Society’s first vice-president in 1755 and succeeded his brother-in-law Viscount Folkestone to become its second president in 1761 – a position he held until his death in 1793.

Through his 1742 marriage to Priscilla Pym, the only child of Charles Pym of St Kitts, Lord Romney owned substantial slave plantations on St Kitts, valued at £19,000 (£4.3m in 2024 money). Romney became the first chairman of the Marine Society in 1756 and was its president from 1772. He was also a vice-president of the Magdalen Society and the Troop Society, and president of the Society for the Discharge of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts.

Lord Romney’s portrait, painted in 1769 by Joshua Reynolds, hangs in the Great Room.