Ruskin studied as an undergraduate at Christ Church, and remained proud of his connection with Oxford for most of his life. He had an important role in the establishment and design of the University Museum for the teaching of the natural sciences in the 1850s, and, as the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, gave eleven courses of lectures which were influential far beyond the University. After his resignation as Slade Professor in 1885, he spent the final years of his life suffering from mental illness at his home at Brantwood, on Lake Coniston.
