This tour was organized to coincide with an exhibition at the Tate Britain titled Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde to which the Delaware Art Museum had loaned a number of paintings. In eight very full days the group visited museums, private homes and churches featuring the work of members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their circle.

The first Pre-Raphaelite patrons were mainly industrialists who lived primarily in the Midlands and north of England and through their generosity many of the museums in the area were formed. So it was quite appropriate that we began our journey in the north in Liverpool. From there we made visits to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, just across the Mersey River.

From Liverpool the group went to Manchester to see the Manchester Town Hall designed by Alfred Waterhouse, where we found wonderful furniture, paintings, stained glass, and tapestries, also home to twelve murals depicting the history of Manchester painted by Ford Maddox Brown, a painter and mentor to the Pre-Raphaelites. The group went on to Birmingham, the Cotswolds and Oxford before entering London where we had a private tour of the exhibition with the curator.