ABSTRACT
William Cooke-Taylor was a prolific Irish author and advocate of the Anti-Corn Law League. Cooke-Taylor argues that the mutual benefits of artists and manufacturers were in tune, in terms of developing the economy, the taste, and morals of the country. In 1877, The Art Journal, in a retrospective article that looked at changes in the relationship between art and manufacture, quoted from Cooke-Taylor’s article that lamented the state of design in 1848. However, for Cooke-Taylor, the ‘social elevation’ remained strictly within the existing hierarchies of society. Artists are public teachers; and it is their duty, as well as their interest, to aim at giving the greatest possible extent and publicity to their instructions. The multiplication of the copies of a work of Art is an extension of the fame of the artists, from the applause of some score of amateurs, to the honest appreciation of some thousands, and perhaps millions of his countrymen.
