Finding ‘pioneering women’ in the archive of the Royal Society of Sculptors

Architectural commissions form for members filled in by Rosamund Mary Beatrice Fletcher Membership file of Rosamund Mary Beatrice Fletcher FRBS (1914-1993) (c) Royal Society of Sculptors Archive

On this 1951 form issued to members by the Royal Society of Sculptors to manage the volume of enquiries from architects, Rosamund Mary Beatrice Fletcher FRBS writes her name and architectural works on the form that asks the sculptor for ‘his’ name. Sculpture - and the figure of the sculptor - was often seen as masculine and the Society’s minute books document how members refer to each other as ‘brother sculptor’.

The archive of the Royal Society of Sculptors dates back to the Society’s founding in 1905. The Society was founded by fifty-one eminent sculptors of the day as a reaction to the Royal Academy, where sculptors felt their specific needs were not catered to. The original founding aim was,

“The promotion and advancement in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and its Colonies and Dependencies, of the art of Sculpture and the maintenance and protection of the interests of Sculptors and the elevation of the status of the Profession of Sculpture.”

Though allowed to become members from 1910, the first female members of the Society were not elected until 1922. Being elected an Associate or a Fellow was the mark of recognition as a professional sculptor. These pioneering women were in the minority, and their lack of presence in the archive makes them even harder to find.

Though the archive of the Royal Society of Sculptors represents the work of sculptors working on architectural sculpture, memorials and site-specific commissions, the Society’s archive is uncatalogued and has thus been underused by architectural historians. The Paul Mellon Centre funded research project ‘Pioneering women at the heart of the Royal Society of Sculptors’ aims to shed a light upon the early female sculptor members who were practicing in the early to mid-twentieth century through research into the Society’s archive. The archive consists of over one thousand membership files, handwritten council minute books and annual reports and documents the early years of the Society, the history of the display and exhibition of sculpture, memorial commissions after the First World War, the influx of sculptors from Europe between the wars and the patronage of sculpture in the years following the Second World War. The archive is unique and charts the history and development of sculpture from 1905 to the present day.

‘The Royal Society of British Sculptors annual report March 1966 – March 1967’, p.12-13 (c) Royal Society of Sculptors Archive

Rosamund Lily West, Paul Mellon Research Curator, Royal Society of Sculptors archive@sculptors.org.uk

Rosamund has a background in museum collections, public engagement and academic research. With an MA in history of art from the University of York, Rosamund is currently doing a part-time PhD at Kingston University on the post-war London County Council’s housing and public art. She also works as Documentary Curator at the London Transport Museum. Rosamund is leading on the RSS’s project to celebrate the lives, careers and legacies of the pioneering women at the heart of the Society.