BURY ST EDMUNDS SCIENCE AND ART CLASSES
Bury St Edmund's Science and Art Classes are first noticed in 1885 when Edith Payne was a pupil then being held in the Town Hall, next noticed in an advertisement in the Bury Free Press of January 1888 'Art and Science Classes, Bury St Edmund's conducted by W T Griffiths, headmaster of the Ipswich School, every Wednesday commencing on the 25th inst. at Rooms over the Offices of the Bury Free Press, Abbeygate Street....Students will be prepared for any of the Drawin Examinations for the Certificates and Prizes offered by the Government Department of Science and Art or for Oxford and Cambridge local examinations. On 19 January 1889 'Bury St Edmund's Science and Art Classes, under the Management of a Local Committee and conducted by W. T. Griffiths, will re-commence at the Rooms at 61 Abbeygate Street, on Wednesday the 23rt inst.' William Thompson Griffiths was head at the Ipswich School of Art so it assumed that they held classes in Bury St Edmund's and one of the students at Bury was Rose Mead. They are last noted as being held in the Town Hall, Bury St Edmund's in 1894. This may have been a forerunner of the Bury St Edmund's School of Art. Suffolk artists who studied at the Bury St Edmund's Science and Art Classes include Rose Mead, Emily Annette Partridge and Edith Payne.