The Benjamin Franklin Medal
The Benjamin Franklin Medal is awarded to a global ‘big thinker’, an individual who has
- shifted public debate in an innovative way
- contributed to furthering public discourse about human progress
- deemed by the RSA to be significant to our core enlightenment values of developing human progress.
Award winners
1957 - 2008
1958 Peter Ustinov: actor, producer, director, playwright
1959 H G Nelson: managing director of The English Electric Company Limited
1960 Robert Nicholson: exhibition and interior designer
1961 Alick Dick: chairman and managing director of Standard-Triumph International Limited
1962 The Lord Rootes Joint founder of the Rootes Group
1963 John Hay Whitney: American diplomatist and publisher
1964 Sir Evelyn Wrench: founder of the English-Speaking Union and of the Overseas League
1965 Paul Mellon: American business and foundation executive
1966 Sir Denis Brogan: writer on United States affairs
1967 Dr Detlev W Bronk: president of the Rockefeller University
1968 Peter Wilson: chairman of Sotheby's
1969 Dr Louis Booker Wright: director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC
1970 Sir Denning Pearson: chief executive and chairman of Rolls Royce Limited
1971 David Bruce: Diplomat
1972 Sir William Walton: composer
1973 Alistair Cooke: writer and journalist
1974 Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias: prima ballerina
1975 Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis: English scholar
1976 Rt Hon Harold Macmillan: statesman and publisher
1977 J William Fulbright: former United States senator for Arkansas
1978 Dr Ivor Armstrong Richards: Professor Emeritus of Harvard University
1979 Professor Henry-Russell Hitchcock: writer and lecturer on architectural history
1980 Sir Bernard Lovell: professor of radio astronomy, University of Manchester and director of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station
1981 Lincoln Kirstein: director, School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet Company
1982 The Lord Sherfield Diplomat
1983 Dr Lewis Mumford: writer and teacher on town and country planning
1984 The Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne: retired governor of the Bank of England
1985 Professor Harry L Hansen: professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration
1986 Sir David Wills: former chairman of the Ditchley Foundation
1987 Kingman Brewster: diplomat
1988 Professor Esmond Wright: English scholar
1989 Sam Wanamaker: actor, director and founder of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
1990 Sir David Attenborough: naturalist and broadcaster
1991 Edward Streator: diplomat
1993 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: architects
1994 Sir John Templeton: financial analyst and philanthropist
1995 The Honorable Raymond G H Seitz: diplomat
1996 Sir David Puttnam: film producer
1997 William R Hewlett: co-founder and director emeritus of Hewlett-Packard Company
1998 Sir Alex Trotman: chairman and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company
1999 Senator George J Mitchell: special counsel and chairman of Peace Negotiations in Northern Ireland
2000 Dame Judi Dench: actress
2001 The Honorable Philip Lader: diplomat
2002 Dame Marjorie Scardino: chief executive officer of Pearson Plc
2003 The Honorable General Colin Powell: secretary of state
2004 Jonathan Ive: vice president, industrial design, Apple
2005 Dr Amory Lovins: chief executive officer of Rocky Mountain Institute
2008 Ken Robinson
2009 Professor Elizabeth Gould
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