n8 A HISTORY OF 



following were chosen — Hunter, Ashford, Chinnery, 

 Cuming, Robinson, Waldron, O'Neil, Smyth, and West. 

 In 1800, Henry Brocas became master of the ornament 

 school in the room of William Waldron. 



On the 1st of May 1800, it was arranged that the 

 figure school was to be continued on its then footing, 

 but that the other two schools were to be consolidated, 

 under the name of the engraving and ornament draw- 

 ing school, under one master, and that Messrs. Waldron 

 and Baker were to be pensioned. The committee of 

 fine arts, in consequence of a letter from Mr. Chin- 

 nery, secretary to the Society of Artists, recommended 

 that, instead of premiums, the sum intended for them 

 should be expended in purchasing the works of Irish 

 artists that possessed merit, which might remain in their 

 exhibition room, as the property of the Society, for 

 the benefit and emulation of young students. One 

 hundred guineas were to be allotted for the purpose. 

 In accordance with this recommendation, Attention, by 

 George Chinnery, a landscape by Wm. Ashford, 1 and 

 a Portrait of a Student, by Wm. Cuming, were pur- 

 chased at the Exhibition of Irish Artists, held in the 

 Parliament House in July 1801. The committee 

 regretted being unable to buy Ashford's fine picture 

 of a Land Storm, at ninety guineas. It was resolved 

 that, on the recommendation of governors of the re- 

 spective institutions, the boys of the Blue Coat Hospital 

 and the Hibernian Marine School 2 were to be in- 

 structed in the schools. 



1 Ashford was born in Birmingham in 1746. He came to Ireland 

 in 1764, and practised landscape painting. Ashford was patronised 

 by Lord Fitzwilliam, and made many paintings and drawings of 

 Mount Merrion, five of which are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, 

 Cambridge. 



2 For children of decayed seamen ; at that time located on Sir 

 John Rogerson's quay. 



