Royal Society of Arts - Prizes

Originally modelled on the Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufacturers and other Useful Arts, the RSA in its early years offered prizes — which it called "premiums" — for people who could successfully achieve one of a number of published challenges. "Premiums" for a very wide range of challenges (including devising new forms of machinery and agricultural improvements, which included new ways to improve the cultivation of opium poppies etc.). The RSA originally specifically precluded premiums for patented solutions.

The famous Mutiny on the Bounty happened when Captain William Bligh tried for the first time to ship breadfruit from the East to the West Indies, to win a "premium" offered by RSA. The voyage has been subsequently repeated and this time he succeeded, and the RSA awarded him the prize.

In 1936, the RSA awarded the first distinctions of Royal Designers for Industry (RDI or HonRDI), reserved for "those very few who in the judgment of their peers have achieved 'sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for industry'".

In 1937 "The Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry" was established as an association with the object of "furthering excellence in design and its application to industrial purposes": membership of the Faculty is automatic for (and exclusive to) all RDIs and HonRDIs. The Faculty currently has 120 Royal Designers (RDI) and 45 Honorary Royal Designers (non-UK citizens who are awarded the accolade of HonRDI): the number of designers who may hold the distinction of RDI at any one time is strictly limited.

The Faculty consists of the world’s leading practitioners from fields as disparate as engineering, furniture, fashion and textiles, graphics, theater and film design. Early members include Eric Gill, Enid Marx, Sir Frank Whittle and numerous other household names.