JMW Turner RA, one of the UK’s greatest ever painters, entered the RA Schools in December 1789. At that time we were still based at Somerset House on the Strand, and drawing – both from casts and from life – was an integral part of our education system.

We did not then teach painting as a discipline in its own right, although the President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivered regular ‘Discourses’ on the subject. Turner became an Associate of the Academy in 1799, and he attended life classes here at the Schools for much of the rest of his life.

William Blake joined the RA Schools at the age of 21, having already completed a seven-year engraving apprenticeship. Whilst here, Blake rebelled against the ideals espoused by Reynolds – in particular, his pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty".

In his personal copy of Reynolds' Discourses, Blake wrote the now famous line: "To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit."

Despite frequently disagreeing about the way the Schools were run under Alfred Munnings in the 1940s, renowned pop art pioneer Richard Hamilton has since looked back fondly on his time at the Schools. In a letter to Sir Hugh Casson in 1985, he wrote:

"I think back on the time I spent in the Schools with fond nostalgia. The perspective lectures given by the great Walter Bayes have lasted me a lifetime. Sir Walter Russell was a wonderful Keeper. Even the thought of those red fire buckets bearing the Royal crest, filled with mustard coloured sand from which the odd du Maurier fag end protruded, beings a tear to my old eyes."

After attending St Martin's School of Art from the tender age of 15, Sandra Blow studied here at the Schools from 1946 to 1947. She then went to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, before returning to London in 1949 and becoming a tutor at the Royal College of Art, together with Jean Cooke RA.

It was in the 1950s and '60s that Blow emerged as an abstract artist and colourist of lasting significance, alongside the likes of Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton,and Gillian Ayres RA. She was elected as an Academician in 1979.

William Heath Robinson, "The Gadget King", is best known for his exquisitely detailed drawings of impossible scientific inventions and other bizarre contraptions. His success as both a cartoonist and illustrator was arguably down to his great skill as a draughtsman, which he perfected while studying here at the Schools until 1895.

One of the greatest architects of his age, John Soane entered the RA Schools in 1772. It was here that he first became acquainted with William Chambers, and through him, acquired his belief in the superiority of French architecture.

Soane also credits the Academy with saving his life, when he spent a weekend producing a drawing instead of going to a boat party with his friends, one of whom drowned. Soane himself could not swim. In her biography of the architect, Gillian Darley wrote that "the Royal Academy Schools suited Soane's needs perfectly".