The William Ellis School's oil paintings depict individuals of importance in the 150 year-long history of the school. The painting of the school’s founder, William Ellis, may well have been provided by an early governor, someone who knew him personally or had a family connection. Ellis inspired people; the image may be of a slightly crabbed old man but now he is an icon of educational reform. The sequence of three headteachers (spanning the years 1919–1953) show men of very different character, but whose personal and professional attributes allowed others, on the staff and pupils at the school, to flourish. The portraits, together with that of Thomas T. Blyth, are the work of the wife of the school’s enthusiastic Art teacher, C. H. Gunthorp, at the school 1924–1961. They are not just ‘institutional portraits’ to fill spaces in a lobby or study, they are pictures of colleagues, and probably friends, and merit our attention for that.