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
William Davis (artist) William Davis (artist) William Davis (1812–1873) was an Irish artist, and part of a group of Liverpool based artists who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style of painting. He was born in Dublin, received his artistic education there and begun his career as a portrait painter. He moved to Liverpool in 1842 and began to exhibit in the Liverpool Academy. In 1851, he started to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Originally painting still lives in 1853 he began producing landscapes. His work was admired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, through which he was