The £1.3m-a-year question: should our learned societies pay rent on their Piccadilly premises?

Five of Britain's most prestigious learned societies, academies of knowledge on everything from astronomy to zoology, face crippling rent bills from Whitehall after 130 years of rent-free existence.

If the Government wins a forthcoming High Court case it will seek to make the societies, all historic charities, pay heavily for their accommodation in Burlington House on the north side of Piccadilly in London.

The likely rents, on the Government's own valuation, will in most cases wipe out the societies' operating surpluses and call into question their ability to discharge their roles as repositories of specialist knowledge, publishing houses and educational foundations. Some say they may have to leave London.

The sums involved are pidd-ling by the standards of the national budget, but huge for the societies involved: the Royal Astronomical Society, The Geological Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Antiquaries (which concerns itself with archaeology and art history) and the Linnean Society (concerned with natural history).

The case, being brought by John Prescott's department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, is likely to do nothing for the Government's reputation as an upholder of the values of learning and higher education, and is likely to bring it opprobrium from a substantial section of academia. It is already arousing strong feelings.

"It's absolutely monstrous," said Peter Hingley, librarian of the Royal Astronomical Society. "It's outrageous. But the world is full of philistines."

Burlington House, the centre of the row, is two separate buildings. Old Burlington House is an 18th-century nobleman's home, which houses the Royal Academy, Britain's leading fine-art institution. The two wings that extend from it and meet over an archway, fronting on Piccadilly, form New Burlington House; this was built by the government 100 years later to house the societies with whom ministers are now in dispute.

The societies have occupied the building since 1873 and have never been charged rent; but the agreement for this has been merely informal, and there has never been a proper lease (in contrast to the Royal Academy's peppercorn rent on a lease of 999 years).

The Government now wishes to charge them substantial sums to remain. Officials have told the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology what these likely rents would be: for the Royal Society of Chemistry, £441,000 a year; for The Geological Society, £315,000; for the Society of Antiquaries, £221,000; for the Royal Astronomical Society, £176,000; and for the Linnean Society, £164,000.

The MPs commented on the proposal to abrogate the societies' rent-free status: "Putting an end to the arrangement would undoubtedly impact on the work they do."

The societies themselves are blunter. "It is ludicrous," said Dr David Giachardi, secretary general of the Royal Society of Chemistry. "It is one part of the Government robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it would completely change the way we operate. We are a charity and we try and put everything we can back into society to advance the chemical sciences; we spend more than £1m a year on education and the rent will simply come off it."

A survey by The Independent found last week that the proposed rents would put four out of five societies in the red, based on their current operating surpluses, and the fifth, the Royal Astronomical Society, would see its surplus reduced from £200,000 to £36,000. They all say that if they have to pay they will have to make swingeing cuts in their activities, which include giving research grants, holding meetings and seminars, publishing journals and books and maintaining their spectacular stores of specialised knowledge.

"There is no way that we can find that sort of money without substantially damaging the whole of our charitable work," said Dai Morgan-Evans, the Society of Antiquaries' general secretary. John Lane, executive secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: "It would exhaust us."

Perhaps because they are specialised, the societies are not well known to the public, and most people visiting the Royal Academy's popular Aztecs exhibition this week will walk past their rooms without a glance. But they are treasure chests of higher learning, available to outside researchers and scholars as well as to their members and fellows.

All have outstanding libraries. The Society of Antiquaries believes its 150,000 volumes going back to the 1470s (and some of the earliest printed books) make up the best archaeological library in Europe. Similar claims of excellence are made for the libraries of the chemists, the geologists and the astronomers.

The astronomers, for example, have a copy of the 1543, first edition of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium, the first book to show a heliocentric universe, with the Sun rather than the Earth at the centre. The Linnean Society has not only an outstanding natural history and biology library of 42,000 volumes, it holds the priceless personal library and specimen collection of Carl Linnaeus, the 18th-century Swedish botanist who invented the system of classifying living things that we still use today.

All the societies keep runs of remarkably large numbers of specialised journals that can be consulted. The geologists take no fewer than 800, the chemists and the antiquaries take 600 or more each, while the astronomers and the Linnean each have about 400 available. They all publish learned journals of their own, with the Royal Society of Chemistry in the lead, publishing 25.

None of this cuts any ice with John Prescott's department, however, which is seeking a court action to prove that it owns the freehold of Burlington House and can thus charge the societies rent. The societies accept the Government owns the ground on which the building stands, but they have counsel's opinion to the effect that they have "a species of freehold" and are legally entitled to permanent occupation. "We are seeking clarification as to who owns the freehold," said a spokesman for the department.

The societies are not only anxious at how they will manage if rents are imposed; there is a strong sense that the Government is acting dishonourably. "My feeling is that if the Government gives an undertaking it should be bound by that, unless there is a material agreement to change it," said Dr John Marsden, the executive secretary of the Linnean Society.

"Trying to overturn this agreement," said Edmund Nickless, his opposite number at The Geological Society, "leaves a bad taste."

FAMOUS FIVE: THE RESIDENTS OF NEW BURLINGTON HOUSE WHO FACE RUINOUS RENT INCREASES

Society of Antiquaries
Founded: 1707
President: Professor Emerita Rosemary Cramp
General secretary: Dai Morgan-Evans
Fellows: 2,200
Library: 150,000 volumes going back to 1470s
Journals taken in library:: 600
Learned journals published by society: Two main, several lesser
Grants for research: Yes
Premises made available to other societies: Yes.
Budget surplus in last financial year: £220,000 (but without one large bequest, deficit of £110,000)
Likely rent: £221,000
www.sal.org.uk

Royal Astronomical Society
Founded: 1820
President: Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Executive secretary: John Lane
Fellows: 3,000
Famous member: Sir William Herschel
Library: 42,000 volumes going back to 1490s
Journals taken in library:: 380
Learned journals published by society: Three
Research grants: Yes
Premises available to other societies: Yes
Budget surplus in last financial year: £200,000
Likely rent: £164,000
www.ras.org.uk

Royal Society of Chemistry
Founded: 1841
President: Professor Sir Harry Kroto (Professor of Chemistry, University of Sussex – Nobel Prize 1996)
Secretary general: Dr David Giachardi
Members: 46,000
Library: 25,000 volumes
Journals taken in library:: 630
Learned journals published by society: 25
Grants for research: No
Premises made available to other societies: Yes
Budget surplus in last financial year: £200,000
Likely rent: £441,000
www.rsc.org

The Linnean Society
Founded: 1788
President: Sir David Smith
Executive secretary: Dr John Marsden
Fellows: 2,300
Famous member: Charles Darwin.
Library: 42,000 volumes
Journals taken in library:: 400
Learned journals published: Three
Research grants: Yes
Premises available to other societies: Yes
Budget surplus in last financial year: £174,000 (but deficit of £480,000 with loss on investments)
Likely rent: £164,000
www.linnean.org

The Geological Society
Founded: 1807
President: Sir Mark Moody-Stuart (chairman of Anglo American, former chairman of Shell)
Executive secretary: Edmund Nickless
Fellows: 9,000
Library: 300,000 volumes
Journals taken in library:: 800
Learned journals published by society: 4, plus 4 for other societies
Grants for research: Yes
Premises made available to other societies: Yes.
Budget surplus in last financial year: Deficit of £150,000
Likely rent: £315,000
www.geolsoc.org.uk