History
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In January 1979, with the toppling of the Shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Society's future was again a subject for debate. Because of its essentially cultural, non-political character it quickly decided against closure and in favour of continuing much as before. The annual dinner was however dropped and for a time contact with the Iranian Embassy was lost: membership fell though, as time passed, there was no shortage of Iranians, men and women mostly exiles from their own country, wanting to join the Society and willing to serve on its Council. Summer receptions at the Houses of Parliament continued as did lectures, visits to places of interest and the Christmas party. Occasional dinners were held in honour of retiring members - for Nancy Lambton on her retirement from SOAS, for Denis Wright, Kenneth Bradford and Paul Gotch on giving up their Society offices.
Much of the burden of the day during these initially difficult post-revolutionary years was born by retired and working members of the BBME (the old Imperial Bank)), notably Gordon Calver and Kenneth Bradford successively Hon. Secretary and Chairman of the Society who had both spent several years in Tehran, succeeding each other there as the Bank's Resident Director, and again in London at the Head Office as General Manager and Director; also John James and Alan Ashmole as Hon. Secretaries, Lena Hall and Alec Gray as Hon. Treasurers. One wonders what the Society would have done without the Bank which provided all but three of the Society's eleven Treasurers in the past sixty-five years.
The Society's Rules were drastically revised in 1997 to bring them into line with modern practice and to meet the requirements of the Charity Commissioners, the Society having been recognised as a Registered Charity since 1966. Its Objectives are now defined as: To promote learning and advance education in the subject of Iran, its peoples and culture (but so that in no event shall contemporary politics form any part of the Society's activities) and particularly to advance education through the study of language, literature, art, history, religion, antiquities, usages, institutions and customs of Iran.
Under the chairmanship of Michael Noël-Clarke, formerly of the British Embassy, Tehran, the Society has established an annual travel grant for any student at a British university to undertake a project of his or her choice in Iran during the summer vacation - a reminder that in 1950 the Society contributed £10 towards an expedition of two Oxford undergraduates to study the qanats of Kerman. Another initiative has been an annual study morning in London on a particular aspect of Iranian art.
At the beginning of the new Millennium the Society had 368 members, eight of them corporate members.
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