Leicester School of Art

 

It was opened in Pocklington’s Walk in 1869 before moving to larger premises in Hastings Street in 1887. According to a trade directory of 1888 the course of instruction covered, ‘freehand drawing, shading, painting in oil and water colours, artistic anatomy, landscape painting, mechanical and architectural drawing, designing for art manufacture, geometry, lineal perspective and ornamental art’. Morning and afternoon classes were held for ladies and gentlemen with evening classes for working people. A charge was made for all classes.

 

Joseph Harrison, the school’s head between 1882 and ’88, encouraged students to enter work for national design awards. There were no practical facilities for modelling or other hands-on design work partly because of lack of room and partly because modelling was considered secondary to design. In 1884 Samuel Perkins Pick, assistant teacher at the School of Art and an architectural apprentice with J B Everard, was awarded a prize for an original design of a low relief panel by the Worshipful Company of Plasterers. The same year Ernest Gimson won a silver medal for the design of a suburban house. In 1886 he won a second silver medal for the design of furniture.

 

There was a growing demand for more practical courses at Leicester. Classes in building construction specifically aimed at architectural apprentices were introduced in 1883. In 1886 Pick added classes in practical plane and solid geometry. A real change of approach came in 1888 when Augustus Spencer took over the headship. He had previously been in charge of Coalbrookdale School of Art and brought a member of his staff, Benjamin J Fletcher, to be his deputy at Leicester. They oversaw a greater emphasis on manual training so that, for example, George Bankart, an ex-pupil at the school, returned in 1897 to run a new class in plasterwork modelling.