History of the Sidney Cooper building

The building as we see it today on St Peter’s Street, Canterbury’s ‘High Street’, was built/adapted in 1868 by Cooper, by now wealthy and famous. He purchased the house in which he had been born, to which he attached the portico we see from the street, and purchased all the buildings behind the frontage.

Cooper’s purpose was to establish a Gallery and School of Art to provide the tuition in art that he had never been able to afford. Both boys and girls were accepted, and the only charge was one penny to cover the cost of lighting and heat. His fellow Academician friends donated casts, statues and drawings for students to study and some donated their time to act as examiners, including Alma-Tadema, William Morris and Poynter.

Cooper donated the building to the city of Canterbury in 1882 on the condition that it be used in perpetuity for artistic purposes.

Mary Tourtel, creator and illustrator of the Rupert Bear books for children, was one of Cooper’s students. Cooper himself came regularly to teach, often staying late in the evenings to help those boys and girls who could not come during the day.

In the 1970s Cooper’s school became the Canterbury College of Art, attracting famous teachers such as Ian Dury and Michael Craig Martin. The college became too big for the building and moved in 1971 to a campus south of Canterbury, was incorporated into the new Kent Institute of Art and Design and then the University for the Creative Arts. The last tenant of the building in the city centre, Canterbury Christ Church University, vacated in 2020.