Royal Female School of Art

The School was founded in 1842 with the aim according to the Times 18th June 1842 of enabling 'young women of the middle class to obtain an honourable and profitable employment'. Its teaching was originally carried out in rooms below the Male School in Somerset House of course at separate times. In 1852 it moved to Gower Street and during its 8-year spell there 700 female students had passed through its portals. Soon after it relocated yet again to nearby Queens Square and was by then a residential School. Talented students were subject to an entrance test awarded places at the South Kensington Schools (later to be known as the Royal College of Art). As an official organisation funded by the Government, eventually, it came under the control of the London County Council in 1908 as an London County Council Trade School for Girls and was eventually incorporated into what was then the Central School of Arts & Crafts. A poster entitled 'The Female School of Art, Queen Square: The Life Class' is in the collection of the V&A.