Reverend John Eagles (1783-1855) The Reverend John Eagles first used the phrase 'The Bristol School' in 1826. He had been curate at St Nicholas', Bristol, 1812-22, before moving to Halberton in Devon. He was a close friend of the Bristol artists, being a regular member of the sketching parties. A keen amateur artist, he unsuccessfully pursued membership of the Old Water-Colour Society, and sent oil paintings to the Royal Academy, London. Despite his conservative politics he was close to the radicals King and Rippingille. He wrote for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in the 1830s, so his nostalgia for Bristol and theories on art are well known. Eagles felt that painting should be about escapism, he wrote: 'Landscape...should be a poetical shelter from the world'. In the early 1840s he returned to Bristol, having worked in several parishes, and remained in Clifton until his death.