Loan 96 RLF

The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a British benevolent fund for published authors in financial difficulties. First mooted by the dissenting minister, philosopher and educationalist David Williams in the 1770s, the Literary Fund was established in 1790 and has operated continuously since that date. It was incorporated in 1818 and awarded the right to include 'Royal' in its title in 1842. To maintain consistency across the archive, 'Literary Fund', rather than 'Royal Literary Fund', is used throughout the descriptions.From its earliest days, the Literary Fund has retained substantial archival materials. The archive held by the British Library on loan from the RLF covers the Fund's history to 1939, with a small amount of later material. It is arranged in five series:

Loan 96 RLF 1 - Case Files of Applicants - 1790 onwards

These 3667 files cover the cases of the applicants who made a first application to the Fund between 1790 and 1939. They contain letters from applicants and their supporters to the Fund, as well as detailed application forms (from 1841), administrative documents, receipts and other supporting materials such as advertisements, subscription lists and accounts of income.

Loan 96 RLF 2 - Minute Books - 1790 onwards

These volumes contain the minutes of the meetings of the Committee and Council of the Literary Fund, recording issues raised and decisions taken (Loan 96 RLF 2/1/1-11). This series also includes indexes and supplementary volumes detailing the activities of various subcommittees (Loan 96 RLF 2/2-4).

Loan 96 RLF 3 - Annual Reports - 1792-1966 (with some gaps)

These yearly reports contain records of the Fund's purposes, finances, officers and subscribers. They also contain accounts of the Fund's Anniversary Dinners, with full transcripts of the speeches made at these events. This series also includes a special volume on the controversy that ensued when reformers led by Charles Dickens, Charles Wentworth Dilke and John Forster attempted to restructure the Fund in the 1850s.

Loan 96 RLF 4 - Anniversary Dinner Documents - 1793-1939

The Fund's main way of raising funds between 1793 and 1939 was through holding lavish Anniversary Dinners. This series contains the records of these occasions, including letters, toast lists, bills, table arrangements, menu cards and financial papers.

Loan 96 RLF 5 - Administrative Documents - 1790-1957

The Administrative Documents include surviving records of all aspects of the Fund's activities not covered by the other series, including papers relating to its officers, properties, finances, interactions with other organisations and constitution.

Large parts of the RLF archive were microfilmed in the 1980s and many of its papers were sorted and catalogued at that time by Nigel Cross. The current catalogue, compiled by Matthew Sangster between 2008 and 2014, incorporates and expands Cross's catalogues to cover all the materials currently held at the British Library. It has been designed to correspond to the microfilm rolls as well as to the physical archive.

Further information on the Fund can be found in Nigel Cross's brief account, The Royal Literary Fund 1790-1918: an introduction to the Fund's history and archives with an index of applicants (London: World Microfilm Publications, 1984). This can be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room (placed on the open shelves at MSS 806.0941) or requested from the closed stock (additional copies are located at BL shelfmarks X.950/40444 and 85/09106 DSC). The current website for the Literary Fund can be found at http://www.rlf.org.uk/.