Royal Female School of Art

It was founded in 1842, as part of the Government School of Design, predecessor of the Royal College of Art.

Others were sent to head up the female branches of government art schools in Edinburgh (Susan Ashworth) and Dublin (Mary Julyan).

[1] The first Headmistress of the Female School of Art was English artist Fanny McIan, who oversaw the first fifteen years of its life, retiring in 1857.

The emphasis of tuition, which followed to a great extent, but was not confined to, the 'syllabus' established by the national school at South Kensington, was to equip students to gain an income from work as artists, designers, illustrators and teachers, and many pursued all of these activities in the course of their subsequent careers.

In 1894 Louisa Gann claimed in a newspaper interview that the majority of students who had completed the course over the years had found work.