History
The creation of a “British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies” was first proposed in 1899 in order that Britain could be represented at meetings of European and American academies. The organisation, which has since become simply “the British Academy”, was initiated as an unincorporated society on 17 December 1901, and received its Royal Charter from King Edward VII on 8 August 1902.
Since then, many of Britain’s most distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences have been involved in the life of the Academy, including John Maynard Keynes, Isaiah Berlin, C. S. Lewis and Henry Moore.
Until 1927-8 the Academy had no premises. Then it moved to some rooms in No. 6 Burlington Gardens. In 1968 it moved the short distance to Burlington House. It subsequently moved to headquarters near Regent’s Park. Then in 1998 the Academy moved to its present headquarters in Carlton House Terrace. One of London’s finest Georgian treasures overlooking St James’s Park, the Terrace was designed by John Nash and built in the 1820s and 1830s. Number 10 was formerly the London residence of the Ridley family and number 11 was from 1856 to 1875 the home of Prime Minister William Gladstone.
In March 2010, the Academy embarked on an ambitious £2.75m project to renovate and restore the public rooms in No. 11, following the departure of former tenant the Foreign Press Association, and link the two buildings together. The work was completed in January 2011 and the new spaces include a new 150-seat Wolfson Auditorium are available for public hire.
The history, problems and achievements of the Academy have been recorded in works by two of its Secretaries. Sir Frederic Kenyon’s slim but useful volume of 37 pages covers the years up to 1951; Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s characteristically incisive, amusing and informative volume covers the years 1949 to 1968.
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