ART INSTRUCTION. U9 



some bar to their making one, although the Cork School of Design was at 

 that time receiving municipal support. The Drapers Company gave an 

 annual grant of £2^^, and applications for aid were also made to the ]\Iercers', 

 Grocers', and Fishmongers' Companies, and the Irish Society, though the 

 scanty records available do not show whether they were successful or not. 

 The school also received an annual grant of £^00, afterwards increased to 

 ;^6oo, from the Government. Altogether, the amount of outside aid re- 

 ceived far exceeded that given at any time to its successor the Government 

 School of Art. 



Lord Dufferin was invited to become president, and the formal inaugura- 

 tion took place early in 1850, the various classes having been in operation, 

 however, from the previous November. Lord Dufferin showed himself a 

 good friend to the school in many ways, offering a prize of £^0 in the first 

 year, and founding a scholarship of ;^20 per annum as well. Another of 

 £10 per annum was given by Mr. Blakiston-Houston, and it was contem- 

 plated to provide a third out of the School funds. A Mr. Henning, of 

 Waringstown, offered further prizes of ;^io and ;^5, so that there was no 

 lack of encouragement to the students. 



Mr. Claude Lorraine Nursey, who had held a similar position in the 

 Leeds School of Design, was appointed headmaster, with Mr. David Wilkie 

 Raimbach (a son of the well-known engraver, Abraiiam Raimbach) as 

 second in command. 



The course of instruction was the same as in other Schools of Design, 

 and comprised drawing from flat copies, and from models and casts ; also, 

 studies of plant form, and original design. It is to be feared that these latter 

 studies did not amount to much, for we find the Government Inspector 

 expressing surprise that living plants were not provided for the students, 

 and no design was considered worthy of the large prize offered by Lord 

 Dufferin. Another complaint made by the Inspector was that a proper 

 " sculpture gallery," or antique room, was not provided, and we find frequent 

 reference to this want in the records of the School. As early as October. 

 1849, the Committee were in treaty with the Governors of the Royal 

 Academical Institution for the erection of a special room, sixty feet by forty, 

 and twenty feet high, for this purpose, and on the 8th of January, 1850, 

 the Secretary wrote to the central authorities that it was expected such a 

 room, only a hundred feet long, would be built at once. But nothing came 

 of the project ; and it may be remarked that what was felt to be a pressing 

 necessity at that time, remained more than fifty years unprovided for. 



From various causes, the schools of design did not fulfil the hopes of 

 their founders. The manufacturers took very little interest in their opera- 

 tions ; partly, no doubt, because the instruction given in most of them was 

 not of a very practical character, so far as the main purpose of crainmg 

 designers was concerned. Before a special committee of the Council of the 

 Government School of Design, Somerset House, Mr. Richard Burchett 

 stated that the Central School was " an utter and complete failure ; " and 

 Mr. Ambrose Poynter said that the provincial schools had " no pretension 

 to be called Schools of Design." 



The great Exhibition of 185 1 only tended to emphasise the lamentable 

 deficiencies of British industrial art in comparison with that of other coun- 

 tries, especially our great dependency, India. The exquisite productions of 

 that country, which many Englishmen had been accustomed to look upon 

 as a semi-barbarous one, were a revelation to all concerned, and put to 



