The founding of the Royal Academy in 1768 gave artists a new confidence in their profession. They felt free to move away from the existing creative quarter of Covent Garden to fashionable, newly built Marylebone. Newman Street, running north from Oxford Street, was the centre of what became known as the 'Artists' Parish of Marylebone'. The first artists to move there in the 1770s were the successful members of the new Royal Academy. From the 1820s, their properties were sold or subdivided and let out to younger artists. Marylebone now became the springboard for the next generation of struggling young artists, attracted to its reputation as a creative quarter.

Further information about Marylebone is available through these links:

Benjamin West

William Powell Frith

Augustus Egg