Burne Jones, Rossetti, Millais, Lord Leighton, Kate Greenaway, Flint, Michael Ayrton, Franz Kline, Laura Herford, Evelyn Waugh, Lady Butler, E.H. Shepard and Emily Mary Osborn and Walter Sickert are numbered amongst its former students as was the first Principal of the Slade School of Art, Sir Edmund Poynter and an early Principal of the Royal College of Art, Walter Crane.
The Heatherley School of Fine Art was the first school to admit women to the life room on equal terms with men.
In 1845, a group of students of the Government School of Design in Somerset House, unable to tolerate any longer the academic restrictions imposed on them, began to work as a separate class in Dickenson’s Drawing Gallery, 18 Maddox Street. In 1848 Dickenson’s became Leigh’s and moved to Newman Street with James Matthews Leigh as Principal. When he retired, his pupil and assistant Thomas J. Heatherley took over the school and ran it for nearly 30 years without a break.
When Heatherley retired as principal his nephew John Crompton (1854–1927) and His wife Mary Ellen became the new Principals. The couple ran the school from 1887 until they handed it over to the Masseys in 1907.
Many distinguished artists received their early training at Heatherleys
Michael Ayrton (1921-1975) — John Bagnold Burgess (1829-1897) — Elizabeth Thompson Butler (1846-1933) — Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-1890) — Walter Crane (1845-1915) — Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898) — Dorothy Burroughes (1883-1963)— William Russell Flint (1880-1969) — Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934) — Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) — Frederick Goodall (1822-1904) — Laura Herford (1831-1870) — Henry Holiday (1839-1927) — Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) — Franz Kline (1910-1962)— Anna Blunden (1829-1915)— Edwin Longsden Long (1829-1891)— LeRoy Foster (1925-1993)— Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896) — Iain Macnab (1890-1967) — Henry Stacy Marks (1829-1898) — John Everett Millais (1829-1896) — Emily Mary Osborn (1828-1925) — Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919) — Henrietta Rae (1856-1928) — Fred Roe (1864-1947) — Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) — Henry Ryland (1856-1924) — E.H. Shepard (1879-1976) — Walter Sickert (1860-1942) — Steven Spurrier (1878-1961) — Posy Simonds (b.1945) — Frederick Walker (1840-1875) — Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) —