Victoria and Albert Museum

Arts Council of Great Britain: records, 1928-1997

Series description

Context

At the end of December 1939, the Pilgrim Trust appointed a Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts. The Pilgrim Trust had been set up in 1930 as a result of a gift of £2 million by Edward Harkness, an American railway millionaire, to help conserve the heritage of Great Britain in all its aspects, social, intellectual and material: its name had been chosen to signify its dedication to an adventurous ideal and its link with the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. The Committee was established under the chairmanship of Lord Macmillan, who was also chairman of the Pilgrim Trust. Its objects in the first months of its foundation were to help the arts to adjust themselves to the unknown war-time conditions, and to encourage the active interest in the arts professed by certain voluntary bodies. It offered financial support to such bodies, the Pilgrim Trust having provided £25,000 to launch the experiment.

The Committee was composed of six people chosen by the Pilgrim Trustees and by Lord De La Warr, who was then President of the Board of Education. The other members of the Committee, besides Lord Macmillan, the chairman, and Dr Thomas Jones, the secretary of the Pilgrim Trust, were Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, Sir Walford Davies, who had pioneered broadcast music, Thelma Cazalet, MP and W E Williams, Director of the British Institute of Adult Education and originator of the Institute's 'Art for the People' travelling exhibitions.

In 1940 the original committee (enlarged by the inclusion of Sir Kenneth Barnes, the Earl of Crawford and Miss M Fry) became the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, formally appointed by the President of the Board of Education.

Lord Macmillan's successor as chairman of CEMA was John Maynard Keynes, whose appointment ran from 1 April 1942. The position of the honorary directors was reviewed and it was agreed to put these officers onto a salaried basis. Dr Reginald Jacques became the first Music Director and Ivor Brown the first Drama Director. W E Williams who had served as honorary director for art, was now attached to the War Office as director of the Army Bureau for Current Affairs, and his place as Art Director was taken by Philip James. In the summer of 1942, Ivor Brown was forced to resign on his appointment as editor of the Observer; Lewis Casson was appointed as Drama Director in his place.

October 1942 saw a major development in organisation. Keynes informed the Council that after consultation with the president of the Board it had been decided to set up panels for Music, Art and Drama, the original intention being, that as chairman of CEMA, he would be entitled to take the chair at all panel meetings. It was made evident that decisions taken at panel metings would have the force of Council decisions, but major questions of policy would be referred to the regular quarterly meetings of Council whenever necessary, and all decisions on finance and policy would be referred to the Council for information.

In January 1945 a full-scale debate on the question of the reconstitiution of CEMA as a permanent peace time body took place. As part of the agreed plan for the future it was proposed that an Executive Committee should be established. This committee consisted of Keynes (as chairman), a general member of the Council ( Dr B Ivor Evans) and the three chairmen of the panels.

Scope and content

This series contains the records concerning the central administration and policy making of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts ( CEMA), which in later years was to become The Arts Council.

Within this series are the minutes and notes for the informal conference held in December 1939 which led to the formation of the Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, as well as the minutes of the six meetings of the committee. There are also the minutes of the Council, with sets of papers received at Council (arranged numerically, with indexes). The minutes of the first 20 meetings of the Executive Committee are also in this series, as are the two annual reports published by CEMA.