RPS Archive at V&A: Cataloguing 19th-Century Minutes and Member Registers

At the V&A, Federica Beretta serves as the Royal Photographic Society Project Archivist, providing updates on the cataloging of the RPS Collection. This archive features Council minutes dating back to 1853, along with administrative documents from the 1970s, over a century of correspondence, publications, and various ephemera. More than one hundred bound volumes of 19th-century meeting minutes and member registers have been systematically organized and rehoused. These documents encapsulate the discussions and frameworks that influenced photographic practices. Notably, the archive contains Roger Fenton's signature and Alvin Langdon Coburn's personal papers. The initiative seeks to establish a structural connection between the institutional records and the Society's collections at the National Art Library. The cataloged materials are now available for public and scholarly access, reflecting the RPS's development throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the impact of two world wars and various relocations.