Loan 96 RLF 3/21

Bound volume containing the annual reports for 1921-1926 inclusive.

The documents for each year contain a History of the Fund, a list of the officers of the corporation (Patron, President, Vice-Presidents, Council, Committee, Registrars, Treasurers, Auditors, honorary officers, Bankers and Secretary), and lists of chairmen of the anniversaries, ‘Members of the Corporation’ with details of their donations, donors not yet qualified as members, miscellaneous benefactions, legacies, decreased benefactors and ‘Officers of the Corporation, Deceased’. For each year there are also Auditors’, Treasurers’ and Registrars’ reports for the previous year as well as details of the stewards of and donations made at the Anniversary dinners and short items on major bequests (from Thomas Newton and T L Kington Oliphant).

For each year, there are also varying records as described below:

1921 (64 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1921’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: Albert I, the King of Belgium; principal speakers: John Hamilton, Lord Sumner; Émile Cammaerts; George Nathaniel Curzon, the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston).

1922 (64 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1922’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: Rowland Edmund Prothero, Lord Ernle; principal speakers: William Ralph Inge, the Dean of St Paul’s; Sir James Rennell Rodd); advertisement for David William: Founder of The Royal Literary Fund, by Edward Verrall Lucas (also present in the next four reports); ‘List of Portraits in Oils belonging to the Corporation’ (also present in the next three reports).

1923 (72 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1923’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: Alfred Edward Woodley Mason; principal speakers: Sir Chartres Biron; Alfred Noyes; Sir John Simon).

1924 (68 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1924’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: David Alexander Edward Lindsay, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (replacing Edward, Prince of Wales at short notice); principal speakers: Cyril Argentine Alington; Arthur Bingham Walkley; Sir Frederick Pollock).

1925 (74 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1925’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: The Spanish Ambassador, Alfonso, Marquess of Merry del Val; principal speakers: Sir Robert Kindersley; Ian Hay Beith; David Alexander Edward Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres); article on Colonel Thomas Blood’s Daggers, which were in the possession of the Fund at the time.

1926 (66 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Meeting, 1926’, with transcripts of the speeches (chair: Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, Prince of Wales; principal speakers: David Alexander Edward Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres; Gordon Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice of England; Charles Whibley); two articles on Colonel Thomas Blood’s Daggers, which were in the possession of the Fund at the time.