Eliza Bridell Fox

She was born in Hackney as the daughter of William Johnson Fox, preacher and politician, Unitarian minister of the South Place Chapel, and Eliza née Florance.

[1] Mr and Mrs Fox separated in the 1830s, and, causing much scandal, her father apparently took her and her siblings to set up home with Eliza Flower.

[4] Eliza became a copyist by first studying Bernhard Siegfried Albinus' Anatomy, which her father bought for her, and later, by copying paintings in the National Gallery and the British Museum.

[4] Receiving encouragement from artists, she finally convinced her father to let her study for three years at Sass's Academy under the directorship of Francis Stephen Cary.

[4] After a few years she began instruction with the purpose of educating women to the point that they would qualify for admittance to the Royal Academy schools, and one of her students, Laura Herford, succeeded on the basis of a drawing that only included her first initials.