The Society of Arts and Government, 1754-1800: Public Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century England

Abstract

THE FOUNDATION AND SUPPORT of Oeconomical Societies-as of artistic and scientific academies, hospitals, universities, botanical gardens, and other public, civic, and royal amenities-was a feature of the international culture of the Enlightenment. At Philadelphia and at St. Petersburg, in German princely states and in the free city of Hamburg, in Dutch and Swiss towns, and in French and even Spanish provinces organizations were set up to stimulate industry and agriculture by means of monetary grants, honorific awards, and the diffusion of knowledge.' Though Italy and France could claim the lead in scientific and artistic foundations, it was to the British Isles, first to Dublin and after 1754 to London, that the nations looked for models of these new institutions. The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, instituted at London, Anno. MDCCLIV was admired in its early years by British and foreign observers who were struck by the coincidence of its existence and the growth in the wealth and power of the nation which had fostered it. Nineteenth-century writers noted the discrepancy between the value of the Society's early re-