The Jarvis Scholarship or Studentship started to be awarded as of 1913 and was tenable at the BSR for a period of two years. The award was open to British subjects under 30 years of age with an allowance for war service and was offered to the student or associate of the R.I.B.A. who had passed next in order of merit to the winner of the Rome Scholarship in Architecture.

The competition, conducted by the BSR Faculty of Architecture of the BSR and administered by the BSR on behalf of R.I.B.A., was in two stages. The results of the preliminary competitions were usually exhibited at the Royal Academy at the annual exhibition of the BSR.

The Jarvis Studentship was abolished in 1928 on the R.I.B.A. undertaking to provide, in future, for the maintenance of the Rome Scholarship in Architecture, which had hitherto been financed by the Commissioners of 1851.