BECOMING A GUILD COMPANION

Thank you for your interest in the Guild. Please read the information below, and then get in touch if you'd like to discuss Companionship further.

Thank you for your interest in the Guild and its Companionship (the term we use for subscribing members). We welcome applications to join. This brief introduction will give you a sense of what we are about. So: why become a companion?

• To be part of a worldwide community of people with shared values and interests, each making an active and positive difference in the world today;
• to attend events, contribute and exchange ideas, and share your skills, expertise, and passions with other Companions, in person and online
• to support long-term stewardship of the Guild’s precious assets (see below) for the public good and to have a say in its governance and direction;
• perhaps most importantly, to bring your own active contribution, unique perspective and practical experience to the Guild’s charitable endeavours.

The Guild gathers people who are inspired by some of the ideas and concerns about human and planetary wellbeing, and the built environment — still highly relevant today — expressed by its founder, the nineteenth-century art and social critic John Ruskin. 

Ruskin believed everyone’s life could be improved by access to art, craft, good design and architecture, and nature. The Guild is still committed to these principles. It is responsible for an eclectic collection of art and objects donated by Ruskin (the Ruskin Collection, cared for and displayed by Sheffield Museums) and sustainably managed land and property holdings (including Ruskin Land in the Wyre Forest) that are intended to be assets for the public benefit. 

The interests and experience of our Companions vary enormously. You do not need any previous knowledge of Ruskin’s work to become involved. We range in age from teenagers to octogenarians, and while the majority live in the UK, we have Companions in eleven other countries, with the highest numbers in the United States, Japan and Italy. Please visit the Directory to explore different people’s reasons for joining the Guild.

The Guild is modest in scale and resources. It is managed by a small Board of volunteer directors drawn from the Companionship, supported by two part-time members of staff. What the Guild can achieve collectively is entirely dependent on the contributions made by each of our members.

Ruskin set a model of active Companionship. Today, this includes a modest annual subscription; most Companions make a financial contribution, but we also welcome alternative offers of support: contributions of time, expertise, event curation, forging new relationships, writing, research, or sharing initiatives and ideas.

To learn more, or apply to be a Companion, please get in touch with the Guild’s membership officer, Simon Seligman, for an informal conversation. He can be reached on 07736 148771 or via communications@guildofstgeorge.org.uk.

More about the origins and aims of the Guild

The Guild of St George is a UK-registered educational charity with an international membership. Our official objectives are ‘to promote the advancement of education and training in the fields of rural economy, industrial design and craftsmanship, and appreciation of the arts’.

Ruskin’s motto was ‘To-Day, To-Day, To-Day’. He believed active engagement in the world — seeing, saying and doing — was the only way to make it fairer and better. He invites us to ask ourselves what it is we want to do today to further the good in society, with whatever skills, passions and resources we have.  He believed people could make more of a positive difference, for themselves and for others, if they worked in association with one another, and so founded our Guild. 

Ruskin first established the ‘St George’s Company’ in the 1870s. He was inspired by St George’s legendary act of confronting a dragon, a symbol of fearless courage and purpose in confronting the ills of society. He later changed ‘Company’ to ‘Guild’, inspired by guilds set up by professions and groups of like-minded people across Europe from the medieval period onwards. Ruskin called its supporters Companions, a term associated with the notion of travelling together with shared aims. 

Ruskin was fearless in pointing out the injustices of his own time. In his book of essays, Unto This Last, in which he expressed perhaps his most famous insight, ‘There is no Wealth but Life’, Ruskin also coined a term, ‘illth’, to mean the opposite of true wealth. While ‘wealth’ should be used to describe resources fairly made and fairly shared, illth, he suggested, should describe the selfish, extractive and oppressive use and hoarding of money, resources and energy. The fight for a more equitable sharing of the world’s finite resources and wealth remains an existential challenge for most of the world’s population and for the planet itself. In its modest way, the Guild seeks to be a champion of true wealth in the face of the ongoing resurgence of illth.

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Ruskin was a writer, art and social critic, artist and philanthropist. As an author he commanded international respect, attracting praise from figures as varied as Tolstoy, George Eliot, Proust and Gandhi and he was cited as an influence by Clement Attlee and the founders of the National Trust.

He wrote about many things, among them art and architecture, nature and craftsmanship, literature and religion, political economy and social justice. He also worked tirelessly for a better society and his founding of the Guild of St George was one part of that endeavour. 

The depth and range of his thinking, his fierce critique of industrial society and its impact on both people and their environment, and his passionate advocacy of a sustainable relationship between people, craft and nature, remain as pertinent today as they were in his own lifetime.