Loan 96 RLF 3/24

Bound volume containing the annual reports for 1939-1942, 1945-1946 and 1948-1953.

The documents for the years up to and including 1942 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, ‘special benefactions’, decreased benefactors, ‘Officers of the Corporation, Deceased’ and members of the corporation ‘deceased during the year’. For each year there are also Auditors’, Treasurers’ and Registrars’ reports for the previous year as well as short items on major bequests (from Thomas Newton and T L Kington Oliphant) and an advertisement for David William: Founder of The Royal Literary Fund, by Edward Verrall Lucas.

The reports cease during the latter half of the Second World War, the first break in the records for over a century. From 1945 onwards, reports are radically stripped back, containing a brief page of rules, a list of the officers of the corporation (Patron, President, Vice-Presidents, Council, Committee, Registrars, Treasurers, Auditors, honorary officers, Bankers and Secretary) and the reports presented to the Annual General Meeting (including the accounts, records of investments and reports of grants awarded).

The extent of each report is given below, with any additional content noted:

1939 (69 pp.): ‘The Anniversary Dinner, 1939’ (the final such dinner), with transcripts of the speeches (chair: Neville Chamberlain; principal speakers: Cyril Asquith; Dorothy Leigh Sayers; Alan Patrick Herbert; David Alexander Edward Lindsay, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres).

1940 (47 pp.)

1941 (47 pp.)

1942 (47 pp.)

1943-1944: No reports

1945 (12 pp.)

1946 (12 pp.)

1947: No report

1948 (12 pp.)

1949 (12 pp.)

1950 (12 pp.)

1951 (12 pp.)

1952 (12 pp.)

1953 (12 pp.)