Society of Architects

At that time Fellows and Associates comprised two distinct classes of membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

They were respectively entitled to use the post-nominal affix "FRIBA" or "ARIBA".

The formation of the Society of Architects was a result of a campaign by a group of associates to be allowed to vote on the affairs of the Institute which the Fellowship class had resisted.

But at about the same time the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors (IAAS) was formed, which opposed a draft bill presented to Parliament in 1927 by the RIBA Registration Committee.

When eventually the Architects' Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK) came to be established under the Architects (Registration) Act, 1931 with the duty of setting up, maintaining and publishing the Register of Architects, the First Schedule of the Act prescribed that the Councils of certain bodies would be entitled to appoint one member in respect of 500 of their own members; and in the case of the RIBA and the IAAS, this was to be in respect of their own fellows, associates or licentiates.