[6][7][8] In his 1998 book, Introduction to Victorian Style, University of Brighton's David Crowley stated the guild was "the conscientious core of the Arts and Crafts Movement".

[13] Edward Prior wrote in November 1883, Painters, Sculptors, and Architects are in danger of settling permanently into three distinct professions, oblivious of one another's aims.

A Society is wanted to restore their former union with one another with a programme of cohesion such as the Royal Academy hardly now suggests, and which the Institute of British Architects has deliberately rejected.

Others were soon invited to join, including Fifteen members Lewis Foreman Day, George Blackall Simonds and J. D. Sedding, as well as architects Somers Clarke, John Thomas Micklethwaite, W. C. Marshall, Basil Champneys; painters Herbert Gustave Schmalz, Alfred Parsons, John McLure Hamilton, William R. Symonds and etcher Theodore Blake Wirgman.

[4] The first meeting took place on 18 January 1884 at Charing Cross Hotel with Belcher as chair, and after some debate agreed they would invite others "for promoting greater intercourse among the Arts".

The guild organised talks, lectures, demonstrations and meetings to bring unity of the arts to its members including guest speakers such as Lucien Pissarro in 1891.

[16] Sir Edwin Lutyens was first invited as a guest in 1892 and recalled:[17] then, no one knew me and those few that did patronised or snubbed me but he joined later and admired the freedom to argue passionately and: the way those fellows lay into each other By 1895 the guild had 195 members and included such luminaries as William Morris and Thomas Graham Jackson.

Many, including Morris wanted the guild to be a more active force and put forward a Councillor to the London County Council to advise on the protection of historical buildings and advocate craftsmanship.

[22] However Frampton caused controversy in 1915, calling for Karl Krall, a German-born member, to have his membership revoked due to his nationality during World War I.

[23] During World War II the guild's income dropped considerably, however they remained solvent under the "zealous guardianship of the funds" of honorary treasurer Laurence Arthur Turner.

The Central School of Art and Design was offered as temporary accommodation by London County Council, with negotiations being held by F. V. Burridge, the college's principal.

However, the architects Arnold Dunbar Smith and Cecil Claude Brewer had an office in the front of the early Georgian house at 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury and, when they heard that the freehold was for sale, encouraged the guild to buy it.

[33][34] At the opening, Master Harold Speed said to his fellow Brothers that he knew they would miss,[28] the picturesque and loveable old hall and Inn but encouraged them to enjoy the satisfaction of being our own masters in our own home, and shall doubtless accumulate in the future, traditions and properties in Queen Square, which will render the new home even dearer and more interesting to us than the old The hall was furnished with rush-seated chairs made in Herefordshire by Philip Clissett and his grandsons between 1888 and 1914,[35] and afterwards copied by Ernest Gimson and his successors.

[42] Current notable members include artist Chila Kumari Burman,[43] Jane Cox, a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association and Chair of the Outreach Committee of the Art Workers Guild (who run projects across various institutions such as the V&A, Courtauld Institute, Watts Gallery and Imperial College London)[44] and Fleur Oates, a lacemaker and embroiderer who is the artist in residence at Imperial College's vascular surgery department.