Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers

Samuel Palmer (English, 1805–1881) – one of only two painter-etchers to be granted posthumous Honorary Fellowship of the RE – was terminally ill at the time of the Society's formation, otherwise would have been approached.

James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903), who was in Venice at the time of the RE's founding, had a row with his brother-in-law, Haden, and was not invited to join.

[2] By 1911, when HM King George V granted a Charter of Incorporation and Bye-laws, the RE, as it came to be styled, had grown in prestige and became fully established.

To support the President and help direct the affairs of the Society there is an RE Council and four RE Officers as outlined in the RE Charter: these are Vice-president Michelle Griffiths (VPRE from 2018), Hon.

[3] Membership, which was and still is restricted in number in order to make it a mark of distinction, is by election on the basis of work submitted to the Society's Council for peer review.

Others were elected as an Associate but did not achieve the full fellowship, such as Eli Marsden Wilson (1907), John Nicolson (1923) and Salomon van Abbé (1923).