Sketching club formed by Dadd, Egg, Elmore, Frith, Henry O'Neill, and John Phillip about 1837 when all were students at the Royal Academy Schools in London. It was an informal society of friends without a specific aim other than to improve their work, although they favoured literary and historical subjects. Weekly meetings were held at which a subject was chosen and each made a monochrome sketch. A session of criticism followed and the best sketch of the evening chosen. In 1841 Dadd, Frith and Egg were also involved in an attempt to set up an exhibiting society for young artists in opposition to the Academy. They were dubbed 'the malcontents' by the painter WB Scott and nothing came of the scheme. In 1843 Dadd murdered his father and was incarcerated in Bethlem Hospital for the insane, and then Broadmoor, for the rest of his life. He continued to paint, producing some of the most extraordinary imaginative works in British art, including keynote Fairy painting.