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The Guild Today

Today the Guild is a charitable Education Trust, which tries to put Ruskin's ideas into practice. Its purpose has never been to pursue specifically Ruskinian or antiquarian projects. It aims to work in the spirit of Ruskin's Company, but to pursue those values in contemporary ways. It works through a number of properties. It has an educational art collection, built up by Ruskin and supplemented since, in the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield. It owns some farmland and woodland in the Wyre Forest, near Bewdley, Worcestershire, which it manages in an environmentally friendly manner. It owns a number of houses in the Arts and Crafts style in the Hertfordshire village of Westmill; these are let at affordable rents and maintained as buildings of quality.

It also provides scholarships and awards across a variety of subjects close to Ruskin's heart. It recently funded the very successful national Campaign for Drawing, and it provided the finance for a nine-year cycle of Triennial Exhibitions in the Millennium Gallery, which have Ruskin at the heart of them but extend his concerns into the present century. It has also begun organising a series of open symposia on issues of current importance. These are designed to question the political truisms of our day, much as Ruskin questioned those of his. The Guild is also, at present, supporting work in the regeneration of old orchards and hay meadows in the Wyre Forest area, and it helped to build an architecturally striking study centre on its land, The Ruskin Studio.

The Guild is run by the Master, a Board of directors and a stipendiary Secretary. The Master and Secretary handle the day-to-day business of the Guild and the Board meets for business meetings at least three times a year. Every autumn the Companions gather for their AGM, which is usually followed by an annual lecture on some Ruskinian topic. This lecture, along with other publications, is usually published by the Guild.

The current Master of the Guild is Clive Wilmer. The Directors are Dr Janet Barnes, Dr James S. Dearden, Chris Harris (Treasurer), John Iles, Peter Miller, Dr Cedric Quayle, Robert Wilson and Dr Jacqueline Yallop. The Secretary is Norman Hobbs.

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