Thread by @antonhowes

Many people know @PrueLeith for her cookery, nowadays as a judge on the Great British Bake-Off.

But did you know that she was also responsible for the temporary modern sculptures on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth?

All because of the wacky world of @theRSAorg. A thread:

It began in the 1980s when Leith joined the Royal Society of Arts, the subject of my book (linked).

amazon.co.uk/Arts-Minds-Soc…

Initially, she was interested in its promotion of hands-on skills like cooking: she was horrified that many kids couldn't even boil an egg.

But by the 1990s, Leith had risen to a position of power in the RSA. As its chairman, she got the organisation more and more involved in food.

(The striking thing about the RSA is that as an all-purpose national improvement agency, it can be used for pretty much anything)

At first, Leith's campaign focused on talk. She convened chefs, caterers, politicians, and teachers, to explore what could be done to add cooking to the school curriculum. Alongside these, the RSA commissioned some research.

But the RSA, at its best, is usually about action.

The RSA organised annual "food weeks", providing teachers with various printed materials and even a support phone line.

But this relied too much on teachers' initiative, and many of them were themselves inexperienced cooks.

So Leith decided to provide an ideal model of what teaching cookery in schools should look like. Parents, teachers, and politicians, needed to be impressed.

They kitted out a bus, which went from school to school, able to open up "like a Tardis" into a cookery teaching classroom

Much like one of the RSA's earlier projects, the Great Exhibition of 1851, which changed consumer tastes by showing what was possible, Leith's food buses quite literally changed schoolkids' tastes.

Some parents even complained about the "fancy" food now being requested of them.

The food buses were an RSA project for as long as the funding (from @waitrose) lasted. They still exist, with some of them still touring the country for the @SoilAssociation.

But the RSA is rarely single-minded. Which is how Leith found herself promoting contemporary sculpture.

While taking taxis on her way to various RSA meetings in the 90s, Leith noticed that one of the four plinths on Trafalgar Square stood empty.

For some reason, it bothered her. So she asked about it in a letter to a newspaper.

She discovered it had never had anything on it. The plinth had been intended for William IV, but the project had run out of funds. Since 1841 it had simply stood empty.

In a follow-up letter, Leith called for something to be put on it ...and so opened pandora's box.

The public inundated the newspapers with suggestions: famous footballers, Winnie-the-Pooh, Margaret Thatcher on a tank, and even a gigantic pigeon.

Many suggested Elizabeth II, but the convention is to avoid statues of the living monarch.

Leith decided it was a job for the RSA.

How does one decide things are a job for the RSA? Well, it's best described as Britain's subscription-funded national improvement agency, "filling in the gaps" in anything and everything it can think of.

The fourth plinth was yet another space for it to fill.

The RSA convened a panel of art experts, to consider the public' suggestions. But it was too contentious an issue, so they decided to have temporary sculptures.

If you did not like the one that was on display, then you could vote or lobby for a different one next time.

The scheme, they hoped, would also be a chance to encourage contemporary sculptors, whose works were rarely put in such public places. Trafalgar Square is usually thronged.

They got funding from sculptors' agents, who expected to sell maquettes.

But the problem was approval.

Leith and her panel commissioned three sculptures, to be displayed one after the other, and each requiring their own planning permissions. Some 13 organisations then needed to approve them, from the Mayor of London to various national arts organisations.

Some were obstructive.

Especially obstructive was the Fine Art Commission, chaired by Norman St John-Stevas, who seems to have hoped that he could reserve the fourth plinth for the Queen Mother.

But through persistent lobbying, Leith and the RSA eventually outmanoeuvred him.

Finally, in 1999, the first sculpture was placed on the plinth, sparking both admiration and uproar. The first was Mark Wallinger's "Ecce Homo" - a life-size sculpture of Jesus, which seemed tiny compared to the larger-than-life statues on the other plinths.

Some thought it blasphemous, others found the frail Jesus endearing.

As for the art critics, some saw a chance for public sculpture to be improved. Older statues seemed to "plunge their subjects into oblivion": the king and generals on the other three plinths are ignored.

Yet other critics saw the fourth plinth as a reversal of the progress of modern art, forcing contemporary sculpture, which had once subverted all convention, back into the confines of an ancient medium.

Regardless, the plinth provoked debate. And still does!

After the RSA's initial 3, the Mayor restarted the scheme in 2004, though it's now run a bit differently.

Like so many other schemes in its 266-year history, the RSA started a thing and then moved on to find something else to improve.

More in my book: amazon.co.uk/Arts-Minds-Soc…