West London School of Art
The West London School of Art founded in either 1861 or 1862 as the Marylebone and West London School of Art,[i] was an educational establishment in London, England.[1][2] The school worked with the Science and Art Department in South Kensington and offered lessons including architectural and life drawing.
The school began at a building in Wells Street and had 59 pupils in May 1862, reaching a peak for the site of 125 in February 1863. The school then moved to a building in Portland Place in either April or May 1863. After a full month at its new location, the number of students had increased to 140.[1] In 1867, the West London school came third behind schools in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the number of prizes awarded for works sent to South Kensington for examination. In the same year, the pupil attendance had increased to 492.[4]
A later report gave 501 pupils during 1871,[5] and by 1873, the school was located at 204, Oxford Street.[6]
On 23 January 1880, the school moved to new premises at 155, Great Titchfield street, where it was described as one of the six largest art schools in the kingdom. The building included a sculpture gallery, a life-class room and other rooms for architecture, design and modelling classes. By this time, its student body had increased to 581.[5]
In March 1886, correspondence between Mr Patterson of the West London school and the Sunderland School of Science and Art identified a significant fall in pupil numbers. The letters suggested this was due to a change in government rules, which allowed elementary schools to teach art classes. This led to fewer students wanting to attend specialised art schools.[7] The number of students continued to decline into the late 1880s and the school was absorbed into the larger Regent Street Polytechnic in around 1889.[8][ii] Within a year, the number of students had risen to 600, making it the largest art school in London.[9] The Polytechnic's art department later separated and merged with the Chelsea Polytechnic in 1964 to form the Chelsea School of Art.[10]
Notable alumni
[edit]Students at the school included
- William John Seward Webber (1842–1919), sculptor.[11]
- Julian Ashton (1851–1942), founder of the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney[12]
- Louis Wain (1860–1939), illustrator[13]
- Walter Alfred Cox (1862–1931), engraver[14]
- Baroness Orczy (1865–1947), Hungarian-born novelist[15][16][17]
Footnotes
[edit]- ^ The Society of Arts (1863) notes that the school had begun two years prior to its first annual distribution of prizes to students on 14 July 1863.[1] Carteret-Bisson writing in 1884 gave the date of founding as 1862.[2] Glasgow University's Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture database (2011) gives the date of the founding as 1870.[3]
- ^ Glasgow University's Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture database (2011) gives the date of the merger as 1882,[3] but this is not supported by contemporary sources.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c The Society of Arts (1863). From November 21, 1862, to November 13 1863. The journal of the Society of Arts and of the Institutions in Union. Vol. XI. London: Bell and Daldy. p. 627. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
- ^ a b Carteret-Bisson, Frederick Shirley Dumaresq de (1884). For Girls. Our schools and colleges. Vol. II. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. p. 300. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ a b "West London School of Art". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951. Glasgow: University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII. 2011. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
- ^ Godwin, George, ed. (30 March 1867). "The West London School of Art". The Builder. London: Wyman and Sons. p. 222. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
- ^ a b The Building news and engineering journal: January to June 1880. Vol. 38. London: E. J. Kibblewhite. 1880. pp. 117 & 129. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ Walford, Edward (1873). Westminster and the west suburbs. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. Vol. IV. London: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin. p. 457. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ Hall, W. G. (1966). "Sunderland school of Science and Art, 1869–1902". The Vocational Aspect of Secondary and Further Education. 18 (41): 164–180. doi:10.1080/03057876680000181. ISSN 0305-7879.
- ^ An Old Colonist (9 November 1889). "A trip to Europe". The Queenslander. Brisbane. p. 886. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
- ^ a b Eighth annual report of the commissioner of labor, 1892: Industrial education. Washington, USA: Government Printing Office. 1893. p. 400. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
- ^ "Polytechnic School of Art, Regent Street". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951. Glasgow: University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII. 2011. Archived from the original on 30 September 2023. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
- ^ Pycroft, George (1881). Art in Devonshire : with the biographies of artists born in that county. London: Hamilton Adams & Co. p. 13. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
- ^ Fink, Theodore (21 June 1941). "Julian Ashton's story of his life". The Herald. Melbourne. p. 16. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
- ^ "Depicter of cats". The West Australian. Perth. 7 July 1939. p. 18. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
- ^ Basil Hunnisett, Engraved on Steel: History of Picture Production Using Steel Plates (2018), p. 37
- ^ Dugan, Sally (15 April 2016). Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel: A Publishing History. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-317-17617-6.
- ^ "Orczy, Emmuska (1865-1947) Baroness Orczy, Novelist". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
- ^ Hiller, Geoffrey G.; Groves, Peter L.; Dilnot, Alan F., eds. (2019). An Anthology of London in Literature, 1558-1914. Springer. p. 229. ISBN 9783030056094.