of Arts. In 1783 the society was instrumental in improving the sanitation of Maidstone gaol, and so preventing the "gaol fever", which had ravaged the prison population of the country. Shipley was an inventor in his own right. He came up with ideas on how to provide inexpensive fuel for the poor, a floating light to save those lost in the sea (for which he received an award), a way to establish new species of fish in ponds around England, and perhaps strangest of all, a method of lining your shoes with tinfoil to keep them dry. Shipley died in Maidstone, aged 89, on 28 December 1803. A monument was erected to his memory in the north-west corner of churchyard of All Saints Church, Maidstone. Richard Cosway painted an oil portrait of Shipley, and there is also a portrait, drawn and engraved by William Hincks, in the National Portrait Gallery. There is a mezzotint by John Faber the Younger of a painting by Shipley of a man blowing a lighted torch. Legacy Shipley historical significance was summed up by David Allen in his biography: "Shipley's life included in its span the surge of English Commercial self-confidence which Defoe celebrated and which was to be feared by Napoleon, the spectacular first stage of the industrial Revolution from the flying shuttle to steam-powered cotton mills, the flowering of English genius in the arts from Hogarth to Turner, and the growth of English philanthropic endeavor from the first county hospitals to Hannah More's "Age if Benevolence." In the shaping of these momentous developments Shipley which was both distinctive and significant. Many credit Shipley with helping to establish the role of private organisations to serve the public; the Crown of England was so preoccupied with war and money dealings, it had little resources to further enhance culture at the time. "Merely by existing,the society challenged the way that the British state was organised. To begin with, by taking on certain tasks, they underlined just how much the state left undone. The William Shipley Group for RSA History is named after him. Students of Shipley's Art school William Hodges Francis Wheatley Richard Cosway William Pars Fellows of RSA with Shipley Samuel Johnson Benjamin Franklin Jonas Hanway William Hogarth Thomas Hollis References Attribution Further reading External links The Royal Society of Arts William Shipley Group for RSA History Portrait of Shipley by William Hincks (National Portrait