Royal Academy annual account books

5 vols

There are two series of bound audited RA annual account books for the period 1768-1977: a "Treasurer's" series, 1768-1820 and 1841-1977, and an "Academy" series, 1768-1881. They are virtually identical. This is the "Academy" series and is signed by both the Auditors and (until 1868) the members of Council. The volumes provide an itemised record of quarterly expenditure [abstracts of bills] and annual balance sheets [general statements] of expenditure and income. The accounts were inspected and approved by the Council and it was noted prior to 1818 that a copy had been passed to the monarch (via the clerk to the Privy Purse). The details of expenditure include the salaries of individual officers and other employees, payments to Professors for delivering lectures in the Schools, fees paid to Visitors in the Schools, fees to models in the Life Academy (together with expenditure on wine and beer for the models, which appears as a separate item until 1821) and later the School of Painting, salaries of travelling students, payments to Thomas Otway for the supply of students' ivories, insurance, stationery, legal expenses, tradesmen's bills, payment to craftsmen, purchase of books and prints for the Library (some itemised), occasional travelling expenses for officers, costs of the RA's removal to Burlington House in 1868, payment of pensions, donations and taxes, and expenses incurred in connection with the summer exhibition (including advertising, policing, and fees paid to individual members of the Committee of Arrangement). Income includes dividends on annuities from funds and totals of money received from attendance at the summer exhibition and from the sale of exhibition catalogues. The series was discontinued in 1881.

The Annual Report contains full annual accounts from 1860. The first report provides a general abstract of the RA's finances from 1769 to 1859.