A handmade photograph album in a book meant for charcoal sketching highlights women's studies at the Royal College of Art. Originally founded in 1837 as the National School of Design, the College was established to train art teachers as well as provide instruction on fine and decorative art to students. The photographs inside give an insight into the co-educational student life at the Royal College of Art in the early 20th century. It also reveals that there were a few students of colour at the School during this period.

The album includes many photographic portraits of people in historical costume, most of whom are women, as well as formal and informal group photographs. Few of the photographs in the album have labels. However, it is clear that artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare, who attended the Royal College of Art between 1904 and 1906, is in several of the group photographs, including one showing the Royal College of Art football team, 1909-1910. Most of the individual photographs are of women, presumably students at the school. One woman in particular appears in multiple photographs, including a recreation of the one of 18th century French artist Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun's famous self portraits.

During the period covered in the album there were a number of women students attending the School who would later become noted sculptors, artists and illustrators. These include: Margaret Winser, Jess M. Lawson, Margaret Jameson, Helen Margaret Mackenzie, Anne Crawford Acheson, Dorothy Stanton Wise, Louise E. Jacobs, Amy K. Browning, Maggie Richardson, and Sylvia Pankhurst. Pankhurst studied at the RCA at the same time as Austin Osman Spare, and in 1911 reported on the dire finances of RCA scholarship students.

Winsor & Newton Sketch Book Series 40, brown paper boards. [48] pages in a sewn binding. 86 photographs, some loose. 30.5 x 24cm. Tape repair to cover. Cover separated from contents, sewn binding holding sketch book pages intact. Exceedingly rare documentation of RCA life.