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
Olivia Rossetti Agresti correspondence between the two which lasted until 1959, the year before Agresti's death. Agresti seems to have been unaware of Pound's fame as a poet, and Pound unaware of Agresti's family ties to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Ford, two of the most important influences on his poetry, until years into the correspondence. Portions of this correspondence were edited and published in 1998 by the University of Illinois Press. Agresti became practically a member of Pound's extended family as the years progressed, and she and her two adopted Italian daughters were frequent guests at Schloss Brunnenburg. She was active