Vernon Lushington Thomas Hughes, and Richard Buckley Litchfield, became a unifying force at the College. He was a friend to artists, authors and activists, particularly those of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts Movement who gravitated to the Working Men's College. In 1856, it was he who first introduced Edward Burne-Jones to Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his college rooms. Rossetti used Lushington’s wife, Jane, as a model in 1865. Lushington, friend of William Morris, was a frequent visitor to Kelmscott Manor. He was a close friend of Leslie Stephen and his family; Stephen’s daughter Virginia (later Woolf) based her character
Beata Beatrix Beata Beatrix Beata Beatrix is an oil on canvas painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, completed in 1870. It depicts Beatrice Portinari from Dante Alighieri's poem "La Vita Nuova" at the moment of her death. The painting's title in English translates to 'Blessed Beatrice'. "La Vita Nuova" had been a story that Rossetti had found of interest from childhood and he had begun work translating it into English in 1845 and published it in his work, "The Early Italian Poets". Rossetti modeled Beatrice after his deceased wife and frequent model, Elizabeth Siddal, who died in 1862. The painting was