From the Archives: The Declaration of Trust

The Royal Society of Musicians’ founding document

The Deed of Trust, the first page of which features the names of the original 230 subscribers, including Handel

An advertisement was placed in The London Daily Post, and General Advertiser of 19 April 1738, announcing

“Subscribers to a Fund, for the Support of decay’d Musicians, or their Families, are desired to meet at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand on Sunday Evening next, at Seven o’Clock”.

This first meeting, on 23 April, was followed just two weeks later on 7 May by another in which the fourteen founding resolutions of the Society were settled upon and the name “Society of Musicians” was endorsed.

Those fourteen rules itemise the overall objectives of the Society and detail such things as the amount and timing of subscriptions, the calendar of discussions of monthly and annual general meetings, the banking and investments, and the reasons and entitlements of those calling upon the Society for financial help, as well as the amounts which might be paid on those occasions of need.

These legal objectives were detailed in a document known as “The Declaration of Trust” dated 28 August 1739 and was formally ‘inrolled in the High Court of Chancery’ on 24 April 1740 and which established the Society in legal and financial terms.

The first page of the Declaration of Trust also lists the 230 professional subscribers at this moment in time, and is the earliest known manuscript document relating to the Society.