London Society (organisation)

For the Victorian era illustrated monthly periodical, see London Society.

The London Society

Founded	1912 (1912)
Type	Charitable organization
Registration no.	England and Wales: 206270
Focus	urban planning
Location	Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED
Origins	Founded in 1912
Area served	London
Website	www.londonsociety.org.uk

The London Society is a British membership organisation established to encourage public interest and participation in urban planning and transport matters in London as well as to study and celebrate the capital's unique history and character.

Purpose

The Society advertises itself as being "for all those who love London". Its motto reads "Antiqua Tegenda, Pulchra Petenda, Futura Colenda”. This translates as “look after the old, seek the beautiful, cultivate the future”. The Society's Journal states that "the Aim of the Society is to stimulate a wider concern for the beauty of the capital city, for the preservation of its charms and the careful consideration of its developments".

History

The Society was founded in 1912, and is concerned with "advancing the practical improvement and artistic development of London". Early members included architects, planners and engineers in addition to politicians and artists. Its formation partly reflected a shift from a 19th-century philanthropic approach to urban reform to a more professional and democratic attempt to planning of the whole urban environment. It predated the establishment of the Royal Town Planning Institute in 1914.

The journalist Thomas Raffles Davison wrote:

“The chief issue is the good of London, its orderly and beautiful development, its general amenity as a place for business or pleasure”, and that the Society’s role was “to think about the Future of London and its improvement” as well as “the jealous preservation of all that is old and beautiful in London as far as is possible.”

From its earliest days it has produced reports and contributed to debates about the future of London and various of its landmarks (e.g: London churches, Euston Arch, the British Museum, etc). Indeed, a collection of essays published in 1921 was entitled London of the Future.

The Society developed the first Development Plan of Greater London (1919) which influenced thinking about shaping places and the post-war planning put forward in Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan (1944). This was the first attempt to envisage the management of London as a functional metropolitan region and a key step in developing the notion of a Green Belt.

Modern society

Membership of the London Society is open to all. The society is supported by a range of patrons and members, both organisational and individual.

• President: The current President is Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
• Vice-Presidents: Lord Richard Rogers, Sir Terry Farrell, the Lord Mayor of Westminster, the Dean of Westminster, Lady Duncan Sandys, Mrs R Boyes-Watson, Mrs Benita Jones, Mr Ian Jones and Mr S J Teague.
• Committee: Peter Murray (chairman), Neil Bennett and Clive Price (both vice-chairman), Mark Prizeman (secretary), Nick McKeogh (treasurer) and Philippa Stockley (editor). Other committee members include Patricia Brown, Duncan Bowie, Michael Coupe, Benjamin Derbyshire, Kathryn Firth, Richard Harden, Susan Holder, Jonathan Manns, David Michon, Eric Reynolds and Eric Sorensen.
• Director: Don Brown

Notable members

The founding members of the Society were “an extraordinary assemblage of the Great and the Good”. Its first chair was Aston Webb. Its vice-presidents included Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, John Elliot Burns, then President of the Local Government Board, Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times, and retail tycoon Gordon Selfridge.

In March 1914 The Builder commented that “architects are the backbone of the London Society”. Indeed, notable early members of the Council and Executive Committee include Sir Edwin Lutyens, Raymond Unwin, Sir Aston Webb, Stanley Davenport Adshead, Arthur Beresford Pite, David Barclay Niven, and Reginald Blomfield. The architectural legacy of many of these early members is evident both within London and beyond: Lutyens was architect of The Cenotaph and New Delhi, Unwin designer of garden cities such as Welwyn and Letchworth and Hampstead Garden Suburb, Webb as architect of the front façade of Buckingham Palace and the V&A Museum, and Adshead as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Those from beyond the architectural professions included illustrator Thomas Raffles Davison, artist and president of the Royal Academy, Frank Brangwyn (who worked alongside Diego Rivera and Joseph Maria Sert to decorate the concourse of the RCA Building in New York), publisher J. M. Dent (producer of the Everyman's Library series) and politician Reginald Brabazon, 12th Earl of Meath.

Following its centenary in 2012, the Society was relaunched in September 2014 with a new executive committee. At that point the committee comprised: Peter Barber, Peter Bishop, Patricia Brown, Michael Coupe, Benjamin Derbyshire, Kathryn Firth, Martin Hart, Edward Jones, Jonathan Manns, Nick McKeogh, David Michon, Peter Murray (chairman), Clive Price, Mark Prizeman, Eric Reynolds, Eric Sorensen and Deyan Sudjic.

Journal

The Journal of the London Society was first produced in 1913, and, while the format has changed over time, it has been published ever since. It is now published twice a year and distributed free of charge to members. The current Editor is Philippa Stockley and the Honorary Editor is David Michon.

White papers

The Society has historically played a significant ‘thought leadership’ role. To continue this work the Society in 2014 launched a series of occasional White Papers by those at the forefront of debate about the city. These are considered on their merit. They are professionally rigorous, peer-reviewed and intended to direct discussion about the evolution of London. Those published to-date include:

Green Sprawl: Our current affection for a preservation myth? (2014)

The Society’s first White Paper was authored by the English urban planner and surveyor Jonathan Manns. It provides a comprehensive history of the evolution of London’s Green Belt from the 19th century until the 1960s and contextualizes this with a consideration of that which existed in the early 21st Century. Regarded as "an excellent historical account of the establishment of the Green Belt around London", the report attracted wide coverage and prompted an update of the House of Commons Standard Note on Green Belt (SN/SC/934) and subsequent Research Briefings. The most widely reported element within the public media was its emphasis on the need to “move away from the simplistic and naïve idea that that countryside is a sacrosanct patchwork of medieval hedgerows and towards an empirically informed position which once more recognises housing as a need to be met in locations with appropriate environmental capacity.” Manns said:

"This means asking ourselves how best to meet the challenges faced today in an holistic and strategic manner. Would we devise the current green belt if we started again today and do we actually need the green belt in certain places? It emerged as an idea that flexibly evolved and adapted to respond to the perceived challenges facing each generation. We can and should have the confidence to build on these achievements and re-envisage it for those that follow.”

Building Greater London: An end to the Capital’s crisis of affordability (2015)

Written by Ben Derbyshire, English architect (managing partner of HTA Design), it considers London’s housing shortage at the start of the 21st century and proposes solutions, including a strategic revamp of the structure of governance for the economic region of Greater London and consideration of the kinds of housing solutions that the leadership of such an entity could pursue. Looking to examples from elsewhere in the world, the implication of Derbyshire's work is that London has fallen behind; he told Building: "Melbourne has built example homes of different kinds all around its central business district, San Francisco has got a larger area with greater powers and is encouraging a more diverse offer". He said:

"The people most adversely affected by the affordability crisis are London’s young who are struggling to find places to live in the city, yet on the other hand they are the entrepreneurial seedbed of the city’s future.”

APPG

The London Society provides the Secretariat for the UK Government's All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on London's Planning and Built Environment. The APPG was launched in October 2015 and was the first cross-party group to focus on London's planning and built environment for some fifty years. The first Chair was Rupa Huq and Vice-Chair Paul Scully, with the Bishop of London being Lords Liaison and Helen Hayes acting as Treasurer.

Library

The library is a research resource for matters relating to the history of London and contains over 3,500 items. It is held at Mortimer Wheeler House. Its contents include books, periodicals, maps, press cuttings, letters and drawings. Access is available to members on request.

Activities

Society events include member visits to places of interest, keynote lectures (including the annual Banister Fletcher Lecture), debates and social events. These are intended to bring together those with a particular interest in the city, whatever their age or interests.

Banister Fletcher Lecture

Sir Banister Flight Fletcher (1866 – 1953) was an English architect and architectural historian. He was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) from 1929-1931. With his father he co-authored A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1896) which became the standard architectural textbook for much of the twentieth century. The Society inaugurated an annual lecture upon his death. Speakers have included:

• Margaret Richardson OBE, historian (2006)
• Ptolemy Dean, architect and journalist (2007)
• Emily Cole, conservationist (2009)
• David Gilbert, geographer (2010)
• Richard Chartres, Bishop of London (2012)
• Alec Forshaw, conservation planner (2013)
• Tony Travers, academic and journalist (2014)
• Sir Peter Hendy CBE, chairman of Network Rail (2015)

External links

• London Society