By Ian Cox

It is with considerable pleasure that I put pen to paper to reflect on the London Summer School of 2002. It is just over a year since I was approached about taking on the Directorship of this prestigious programme and nearly seven months since the school took place in July.  I am pleased to report that the programme was a resounding success.

I was a student on the Summer School in 1992 and took part in the programme when I was working in the History of Art Department at the University of Glasgow. Since then I have moved on to become Director of Studies at Christie¹s Education in London, and as Director of the Fine and Decorative Arts programme I still make use of knowledge learned and places visited during that special summer of 1992. Gavin Stamp was Director then and I can remember, as if it were yesterday, the responsibilities and challenges that go with the job, so it was with some trepidation that I took on the challenge of being Director for the school of 2002.

My task was made easy though by the excellent team of people I worked with.  Kathleen Bennett, Chair of the Education Committee in the US was and continues to be a good friend ­ all the result of us becoming pals during the School of 92 when we were fellow students.  Kit Wedd, (former) Assistant Director, also did the Summer School in the same year, so together with old hands, Gavin Stamp (Director of the trip to the north of England), Alan Crawford and Peter Howell there was an excellent team in place to take the School forward into a new era.

In putting together a programme for 2002, Kit and I opted for a philosophy based on conserving the best of the traditional events associated with the longstanding history of the programme, but at the same time injecting new things connected with our passions for Victorian decorative arts and interiors. The end result was something you would all recognise as typical of the London Summer School - days and evenings packed with lectures, visits and tours and a continuing formula based on spending the beginning and end of the school in London, with five days in the north of England taking in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester in the middle. Highlights such as the visits to the Palace of Westminster and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the days out to Surrey houses and Oxford, and the visits to Birkenhead, Port Sunlight, Ironbridge and Wightwick Manor were all there. Some new high points for me as Director were the visit to the newly refurbished Manchester City Art Gallery and to Mackintosh¹s house in Derngate, Northampton ­ currently undergoing restoration and refurbishment.

All in all, the London Summer School of 2002 was for me personally, not only a little bit of déjà vu but also a wonderful opportunity to take responsibility for a long-standing and prestigious course which I believe has a great future in front of it.  This programme continues to offer all those interested in nineteenth-century architecture and design a fantastic opportunity to develop their passion and, furthermore, to explore the transitions into the twentieth-century.  I would like to see the curriculum continue to evolve and this year we plan to introduce a lecture on Victorian Fine Art and to visit some of the galleries in London where it is possible to see fine paintings from the Victorian period. We shall surely miss, however, the Forbes Collection of Victorian paintings at Battersea House, which was put up for auction this Spring.  We shall see instead Forbes' Victorian Royal Collection at the same charming venue.

It has been a privilege being Director of the 2002 London Summer School and I look forward to taking up the mantle again in 2003. A special word of thanks must also go to Susan McCallum, Summer School Administrator. Susan has been an absolute brick over the last twelve months and the VSA is lucky to have her in this role. I look forward to working with her again this year. Let's hope we can recruit another great group of students, and make this, the twenty-ninth year of the programme, another success.

IAN COX

London Summer School Director

London Summer School Faculty

Ian Cox, London Summer School Director, is Director of Studies at Christie's Education in London and formerly ran Christie's Decorative Arts summer school program in New York.  He has regularly lectured for The Victorian Society of America.

Dr. Gavin Stamp, Director of the tour of the North, is an architectural historian, journalist and lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture.