William Shipley Room

The Shipley Room was originally the drawing room for No.4 John Adam Street.

This domestic residence was purchased from the Adam Brothers by Alexander Eddie, a seedsman and an early member of the Society (the RSA’s original designation). From 1860 until 1881 this room was the office of The Lord’s Day Observation Society.

During the interwar period, we began renting out this room as additional office space, creating a communicating door between this and the room next door, which was then the Secretary’s Room (now the Queen Elizabeth II Room).

The room retains some fine Adam detail in the elaborate plasterwork ceiling and cornice. In 1957 an Adam chimneypiece was installed, salvaged from Bowood House.

This room was named the Shipley Room in 2003 after William Shipley (b. 1715, d. 1803), our founder and first secretary – a position that has since evolved into that of Chief Executive.

William Shipley was a younger son of minor gentry who became an artist and drawing master. He settled in Northampton in 1747, where he became involved with the Northampton Philosophical Society, cultivating his interest in invention, botany, and antiquities. In 1751 he created a public subscription scheme to buy winter fuel for the poor of Northampton and became impressed by the town’s horse fairs, whereby small prizes appeared to stimulate a vast amount of effort in breeding horses and preparing them for races. Combining the two ideas, Shipley conceived of a scheme whereby a public subscription fund might be used for other prizes in the stimulation of art, manufactures and commerce to solve various social ills.

The RSA and RSA House: laying the foundations stones

Moving to London, he convened a small group of ten others on 22 March 1754 at Rawthmell’s Coffee House, on Henrietta Street in Covent Garden. These eleven attendees declared themselves to be the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (the Society of Arts for short, and since 1908 known also as the Royal Society of Arts, or RSA).

Shipley acted as our secretary until 1757 and was our register (or curator) from 1757 to 1760. He conducted a drawing school at the same time, training many celebrated artists, including Richard Cosway (who painted Shipley’s portrait). In recognition of his achievements, he was elected a perpetual member in 1755 and received an honorary gold medal in 1758. Shipley retired to Maidstone in 1768, where he also founded a Maidstone version of the Society of Arts.