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
Monna Rosa "Proserpine". Three additional Rossetti painting were then hung in Leyland's drawing room, all of which Leyland called "stunners." Monna Rosa Monna Rosa is the title of two oil paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both of Frances Leyland, the wife of shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland. The earlier and smaller painting was completed in 1862 and its whereabouts is now unknown. The second was completed in 1867 and is now in a private collection. Frederick Leyland displayed the larger painting in his drawing room with five other Rossetti "stunners." Rossetti wrote to Frederick Leyland about the painting on 18 June 1867: