11 Facts About Commonwealth Institute

Commonwealth Institute was an educational and cultural organisation promoting the Commonwealth of Nations that was based in Kensington, London.

Imperial Commonwealth Institute was established in 1888 to hold and apply the property and assets arising from the contributions given almost exclusively by private citizens from across the Empire in a nationwide collection conceived by the then Prince of Wales in 1886 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.

Departmental and ministerial responsibility was transferred to the Secretary of State for the Colonies by the Imperial Commonwealth Institute Act 1916 to reflect the development of administrative responsibility that had occurred since 1907.

Imperial Commonwealth Institute was housed in a substantial and architecturally noted building of the same name on Imperial Commonwealth Institute Road, which ran between Exhibition Road and Queen's Gate in South Kensington, from 1893.

The Act detailed the new site and parameters of size and cost for the new building; and stated that expenses incurred by the trustees relating to the conditions of the lease of other net expenses incurred by the Minister of Education in connection with the Commonwealth Institute were to be "paid out of moneys provided by Parliament".

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In 1962, the Commonwealth Institute moved to a distinctive copper-roofed building on Kensington High Street, immediately south of Holland Park.

In 1967 responsibility for the operation of the Commonwealth Institute was transferred to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, and then in 1968 to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs .

Commonwealth Institute continued as a charitable Trust managed on behalf of the members: the High Commissioners to London of the Commonwealth Nations, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and the four lay members.

The statutes governing the Institute were not repealed until 2003 at which time the remainder of the original Victorian endowment fund was released to the company without restrictions.

Commonwealth Institute held a large number of ethnographic objects and an art collection that had been acquired during the period from the opening of the Imperial Commonwealth Institute.

Contributions of materials and grants from Commonwealth Institute countries were sought to augment the small sum of money that the Exchequer had allowed for the new building.