Loan 96 RLF 3/10

Bound volume containing the annual reports for 1858-1862 inclusive, as well as further documents.

The documents for each year contain an Address to the Anniversary (detailing the aims and history of the Fund), a list of the officers of the corporation (Patron, President, Vice-Presidents, Council, Committee, Registrars, Treasurers, Auditors, honorary officers, Bankers, Secretary and Collector), and lists of Members of the Corporation with details of their donations, Donors and Subscribers not yet qualified as members, miscellaneous benefactions, 'Deceased Benefactors of Twenty Pounds and Upwards,' 'Officers of the Corporation, Deceased' and 'Chairmen of the Anniversaries.' For each year there are also Auditors' reports, Treasurers' reports and a Secretary's report for the previous year and an updated table of grants made in previous years, as well as details of the stewards of and donations made at the Anniversary dinners. All reports are prefixed with a copy of the Charter, Laws, Bye-Laws and Regulations, dated 1856 (13 pp.).

For each year, there are also varying records of the Anniversary Dinner and other additional contents as described below:

1858 (84 pp.): 'Report of the Anniversary', 5 May 1858, with transcript of speeches (chair: Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston; principal speakers: General Sir Charles William Pasley; Count Platen, the Swedish Ambassador; Sir Roderick Impey Murchison; Sylvain Van de Weyer; Richard Monckton Milnes; Prosper Mérimée; Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope; Sir Henry Rawlinson)

1859 (4 pp. + 92 pp.): 'Extract from a letter address to Mr Dickens and Mr Elwin, dated 22nd March 1859', with relation to monies and a library to be donated to the Fund if it accept the reforming proposals from Charles Wentworth Dilke, Charles Dickens and John Forster; 'Report of the Anniversary', 22 Jun 1859, with transcript of speeches (chair: William Ewart Gladstone; principal speakers: Robert Bell; William Forsyth; Price Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein; Charles Allanson-Winn, Baron Headley; James Wilson; Vice-Chancellor Sir John Stuart; Richard Owen; Kenneth Macaulay; William Makepeace Thackeray; Ernest Hawkins; Thomas Chandler Haliburton)

1860 (94 pp.): 'Report of the Anniversary', 16 May 1860, with transcript of speeches (chair: Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St David’s; principal speakers: Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope; Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe; Sherard Osborn; Joseph Napier; Arthur Hill-Trevor, Viscount Dungannon; Richard Monckton Milnes; John Lothrop Motley; George Stovin Venables; Robert Bell; Charles Merivale; Thomas Henry Huxley)

1861 (90 pp.): 'Report of the Anniversary', 15 May 1861, with transcript of speeches (chair: Henri Eugène Philippe Louis d'Orléans, Duc d'Aumale; principal speakers: Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe; Sir Edward Cust; Sir John Pakington; Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot; George Godwin; Benjamin Disraeli; Richard Monckton Milnes; Sylvain Van de Weyer; Anthony Trollope; Paul Belloni du Chaillu)

1862 (90 pp.): 'Report of the Anniversary', 25 Jun 1862, with transcript of speeches (chair: Granville George Leveson Gower, Earl Granville; principal speakers: Matthew Henry Marsh; Captain Cowper Coles; Joseph Napier; Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope; Herman Merivale; Edward Shirley Kennedy; Robert Bell; Gustav Solling; James Spence; Judge Manockjee Cursetjee)