By the Royal Society of New Zealand Act, 1933,^* the New Zealand Institute constituted by the New Zealand Institute Act, 1908, was abolished, and, with His Majesty's gracious approval, a body was constituted as successor to the New Zealand Institute to be called the Royal Society of New Zealand. The new Act is dated 6th December, 1933; from that date the name of the New Zealand Institute disappeared and the new title was adopted.

The Royal Society of New Zealand is now in possession of all the properties and has assumed all the responsibilities of the New Zealand Institute. All members and officers of the New Zealand Institute at 6th December, 1933, continue as members and officers of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Regulations, rules, resolutions, and orders became as effective under the Royal Society of New Zealand as they were under the New Zealand Institute, and all matters and proceedings begun under the New Zealand Institute may be continued, completed, and enforced by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

The Royal Society of New Zealand Act is a machinery measure for effecting a change of title. Under the New Zealand Institute Act, 1908, the Board of Governors was the corporate body; the Royal Society Act makes the Society the corporate body. The Act effects improvements in the method of conducting the affairs of the Society. The Governor-General becomes Patron instead of being a full member of the Board now called a Council. In the long title of the Act the words “a body for the promotion of science” revives an expression of purpose which was present in the Act of 1867 originally constituting the New Zealand Institute Act, but was omitted from later Acts dealing with the New Zealand Institute.

In other minor matters the Act gives that authority for doing what the New Zealand Institute has been in the habit of doing without authority. The Act specifies in detail the Society's power of making rules. Clause 11 repeats Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1925, stating the amount of the annual endowment from Parliament to be £500.