The Guardian view on 80 years of public funding for the arts: more vital than ever | Editorial

“I do not believe it is yet realised what an important thing has happened,” the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in The Listener in July 1945. “Patronage of the arts has crept in. It has happened in a very English, informal, unostentatious way – half baked if you like.” He was referring to the wartime Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (Cema), which would become the Arts Council of Great Britain. Keynes died a few months before it was granted a royal charter on 9 August 1946. A body to secure and distribute government cultural investment was created – an important thing, indeed.

The Arts Council initially funded 46 institutions, including the Royal Opera House and Bristol Old Vic, the first publicly funded regional theatre in the UK. Over eight decades it has contributed to the making of world-renowned treasures such as the Southbank Centre and Royal Shakespeare Company. Today it supports nearly 1,000 organisations from the Proms to Glastonbury, local libraries, comedy venues and community arts centres, as well as individual artists. In 1994 it was devolved into national councils. This week Dawn Airey, the former head of Channel 5, took over as chair of Arts Council England (ACE) from Sir Nicholas Serota.