Talk:List of organisations with a British royal charter

Updated information
I have derived the full list of organisations with Royal Patronage from the Privy Council. This is far more complete but I require some help editing it to bring it into wiki standards. Cheers --Alex 12:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It also needs links checking and pointing to relevant articles. Some of the names of the organisations have been changed or taken over by other institutions.--Alex 13:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

New category created Category:Organisations with Royal patronage complete until 1599 --Alex 11:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe organisations with the Royal prefix necessarily have a Royal Charter. The privy council provides a full list of organisations with a Royal Charter replicated here List of organisations with a British royal charter. The Royal Navy etc are not listed as having a Royal Charter--Alex 15:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Royal patronage and Royal charter
Puzzled by the distinction between "royal patronage" and "royal charter". This List of UK organisations with royal patronage seems to be just a list of organisations whose names begin "Royal...". There is also an entry under Royal Charter, which does not link to this list of "Royal" organisations, and a short list of organisations at List of British professional bodies, which also has no link to the longer list. The two lists differ in a few instances (e.g. name of Royal College of Physicians - of London?), and each contains entries which are not included in the other. Time for some cross-references! And for some rewriting by someone who knows more about this topic than me! -- Hugh2414 12:23, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I would agree about this being a list of organisations whose names begin with Royal.... I was going to add some names of (former) UK Government organisations which had Royal Charters, such as the Royal Arsenal, the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment, etc. Perhaps I'll sit on this list for the time being.Pyrotec 08:30, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

As many of the organizations are NOT in the UK it would appear strange (and wrong!) to add them to a UK listing. davidreilly December 7, 2005.

Recommend Deletion of List of UK organisations with royal patronage and Keep List of Royal Societies but consider retitling to List of bodies with Royal Charter or consider a Category. Royal Charter in the UK is a method of incorporating a body by special means - a direct creation under the blessing of the Crown. It usually indicates that they are some sort of charitable or special bodies that have some sort of special status - eg the BBC, or London Zoo, or a professional society, and can means that they have some sort of state function but have some level of independence of Parliament in some way. Royal patronage just means that a member of the Royal Family (not just the Monarch) agrees to lend their name as Patron or President or whatever, and that they try to assist by attending a meeting etc. (In a similar fashion, Richard Gere is a Patron of various Tibetan charities, and Geri Halliwell is or was a Patron/ambassdor of UNESCO). There are thousands of organisations with Royal Patronage - the Queen has 800 alone - see 4th question. In comparison, Royal Charter is a bit more special. Scottkeir 12:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think a list of organisations with "Royal" in the name is useful. If you think the literal interpretation of the name here would be impractical, solution is to move it to List of UK organisations with "royal" in the name,or somesuch, rather than deleting a useful list.  Morwen - Talk 12:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, the List of UK organisation with royal patronage is, under its current title, wrong. A society has 'royal patronage' if its patron is a member of the royal family, not if it has the name 'royal' in the title (according to royal.gov.uk 'The Queen is Patron or President of over 700 organisations', and the other royals are also patrons of a number of societies, charities, etc.). Similarly, a list of bodies with royal charters should list all the bodies with royal charters, not those with 'royal' in the title (e.g. the University of London, the Institute of Physics, etc.). So - is a list of organisations with 'royal' in the title a genuine topic for a Wikipedia article? I would say yes because, in the UK at least, you cannot use the title 'royal' unless you have been granted the right to do so (as, indeed, you must to use Queen's or King's - which are also 'royal titles' - e.g. Durham University's 'Queen's Campus', which was granted the title during the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002). The granting of such a title is important - as the RAEng website says 'In 1992 its prestige and success in promoting engineering excellence were recognised when, with the grant of a Royal title, it became The Royal Academy of Engineering', and the furore caused by the loss of the royal title when the RUC became the PSNI. Possibly the best place for such a page would be List of British organisations with a Royal title, although this should then include Queen's and King's as well as Royal. However, this would probably be more meaningful as an encyclopedia article recognising those societies and other organisations that have received this honour. Robminchin 03:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

At least one - the Royal Society of New South Wales is in Australia not the UK. I am just about to add the Royal Society of Victoria. The other states of Australia and New Zealand have Royal Societies. This needs to be taken into account. Bduke 07:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Thousands of omissions - Category would be far better for this
If the decision has been taken not to merge or delete List of UK organisations with royal patronage and List of Royal Societies, and not to create List of bodies with Royal Charter or consider a Category, then there are thousands of organisations with Royal Patronage - the Queen has 800 alone - see 4th question. Many of these don't have Royal in the title - eg the R&D Society and the Darwin Foundation have Prince Philip as Patron. Similarily, Royal Charter does not guarantee that there will be the word Royal in the name - eg the Institute of Physics got a Royal Charter in 1970. I'd recommend deleting this page, and creating categories for Organisations with Royal Charter and possibly, Commonwealth organisations with Royal patronage. Scottkeir 10:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Borough charters and extinct bodies
I notice there are a few of these included in the 1990s section. There have beeen literally hundreds of these, which would bloat this article. As the (current) ones are dealt with at borough status in the United Kingdom they could be dispensed with?

Also there are a good few organisations in the list that I would presume to be extinct. If we wwere to attempt to list all defunct chartered bodies, the list would expand beyond all reason...Lozleader 11:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

a table
I have inserted a table which I think is an improvement but it needs lots of editor time to make it right. A table should allow for notes re changes of name etc and also for references.John Cross (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)