ABSTRACT
The non-government organization now known as the Royal Commonwealth Society began its existence as the Colonial Society in 1868. With a charter from Queen Victoria it became the Royal Colonial Institute (hereafter RCI) in 1870. Presided over by the Prince of Wales and comprised of a range of high-profile men involved in trade and politics, its membership reached 3,000 by the late 1880s. James Anthony Froude, the historian and author of Oceana, or England and her Colonies (1886), the writer Anthony Trollope and the journalist Justin McCarthy were amongst those who gave papers at regular meetings. Baden-Powell, Gladstone and Tennyson attended events and dinners, as did prominent imperialists such as J.R. Seeley, author of The Expansion of England (1883).
