General Assembly minutes, vol. 5
Volume of minutes of the General Assembly, including the following selected entries: the Keeper,
George Jones, begins to deputise at General Assemblies during the illness of the President,
Sir Martin Archer Shee, 23 June 1845; unanimous resolution to persuade Shee to withdraw his resignation as President, 14 July 1843; minutes of meeting to elect a deputy Secretary during the illness of
Henry Howard, 20 January 1847; minutes of the meeting to discuss the report of the committee of investigation into the conduct of
R. R. Reinagle, 9 September 1848, which culminated in his resignation, 18 October 1848 and resolution of the General Assembly not to comply with the Council’s recommendation to bestow on Reinagle a grant of £50 per annum, 6 December 1849;
E. Landseer’s motion to contribute £500 from the funds of the Royal Academy to the Great Exhibition of 1851, 27 March 1850; report of the committee appointed to consider the Government’s proposal to remove the Royal Academy from the National Gallery building, 4 June 1850; the passing of
Richard Westmacott’s resolution to discontinue the dinner following the end of the exhibition, and providing that “the Exhibition rooms be lighted and opened for one or more Evenings, when the exhibitors and other persons at the discretion of the Council might be invited to meet the Members of the Royal Academy”, 29 March 1851;
William Mulready’s motion, for submission to the Council, to abolish varnishing days or change the rules relating to them, 3 November - 5 December 1851;
C. R. Leslie’s proposal, for submission to the Council, to make engravers eligible for the rank of Academician, which “after much discussion”, was deferred “until the funded property of the Academy shall have attained such a proportion as to render the Institution comparatively independent of the annual and fluctuating income”, 27 July 1852 and adoption of the report creating a class of Academician and Associate engravers, not exceeding four in number, 23 February 1853; references to a number of motions by C. R. Leslie, including a proposal to repeal the law excluding members of other societies from candidateship for the Royal Academy, which was rejected by the Council, 5 December 1856; and transcript of a letter to the President,
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, from the Prime Minister,
Lord Derby, accepting that the Royal Academy had a moral, if not a legal, claim to be accommodated at the public expense, should the public service require their removal elsewhere, 27 July 1858.