Royal Literary Fund

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The Royal Literary Fund is a benevolent fund set up to help published British writers in financial difficulties. It was founded by Reverend David Williams in 1790 and has received bequests and donations, including royal patronage, ever since. Williams was inspired to set up the Fund by the death in debtor's prison of a translator of Plato's works, Floyer Sydenham.

The Royal Literary Fund has given assistance to many distinguished writers over its history, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, François-René de Chateaubriand, Thomas Love Peacock, James Hogg, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Hood, Joseph Conrad, D.H.Lawrence, James Joyce, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Mervyn Peake.

Through the nineteenth century and until 1939 much of the Fund's money came from an annual fund-raising dinner at which major public and literary figures exhorted guests to make generous donations. Current funds include the income from these earlier investments and from royalties bequeathed by writers. Amongst the estates from which the Fund earns royalties are those of the First World War poet Rupert Brooke, the novelists Somerset Maugham and G. K. Chesterton and children's writers Arthur Ransome and A. A. Milne.

Income from the A. A. Milne estate has enabled the Royal Literary Fund to establish a Fellowship Scheme to place professional writers in universities in the UK. The Fellowship Scheme was established in 1999 under the guidance of Hilary Spurling. It provides a stipend for established writers to work in universities and colleges to help students and staff to develop their writing skills, concentrating particularly on academic writing. Writers employed include novelists, playwrights, poets, translators, writers of non-fiction and of children's books. By the end of 2006, there were 77 Fellows in 47 institutions throughout the mainland UK.

The Fellowship Scheme also undertakes research into the state of writing amongst British students and school pupils and is proactive in promoting the development of writing skills. Between 2002 and 2005 a group of Project Fellowships existed to carry out research into how the work for the Fellowship could be furthered in the future.