Institution amounted to L2000 a year, and in carrying out the purposes of the Act, the Trustees, originally twenty-one in number, offered premiums for the best designs or drawings of patterns for the improvement of manufactures. In 1760 a master was permanently appointed to instruct the youth of both sexes in drawing, thus laying the foundation of the School of Design, which existed and prospered under the management of the Board for more than a century afterwards. The main reason for the establishment of this Board was a fear on the part of the promoters that by the Act of Union the manufactures and arts of Scotland would be transferred to England, and thus be prejudiced to a very considerable extent. Sir William Allan was an artist of great power and varied experience. Mr. Thomas Duncan, who afterwards became an Associate of the Royal Academy, and produced a number of high-class pictures, with which all lovers of art are familiar, was one of Sir W. Allan's pupils, contemporaneously with Mr. Macnee, and from this coincidence, a friendship, which was life-long and intimate, sprang up between them, but it was unhappily severed by the early death of Duncan. Sir David Wilkie, Sir William Allan, Sir John Watson Gordon, Burnet, the engraver and painter, Lizars, the Lauders, the Faeds, and other painters of note, were students in the Trustees' Academy. It may be remarked in passing, that this Board is still in existence, but instead of being controlled, as originally intended, by a certain number of trustees, it is under the management of the Department of Science and Arts at South Kensington. Mr. Macnee's studies at this time were various, but they principally took the shape of drawings from the antique statues. When he first went to Edinburgh, Mr. Macnee became connected with Mr. Lizars, the eminent engraver, by whom he was employed in executing anatomical drawings, colouring engravings, and other cognate works, which greatly tended to amplify his experience, and through Mr. Lizars he obtained numerous commissions from lithographers in Edinburgh, which brought him in emoluments of considerable value. Having completed his studies under Sir W. Allan, Mr. Macnee set up in Edinburgh as a professional artist on his own account, and for several years he continued to paint portraits and finished sketches from ordinary life. He returned to Glasgow in the year 1832, since which he has resided, except at rare intervals, in the Metropolis of the West. For a number of years subsequent to his taking up his residence here, he was largely employed in executing crayon portraits, and he was a large exhibitor at most of the Art Exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, Glasgow, and elsewhere. Indeed, it is perhaps not too much to say that Mr. Macnee has exhibited more pictures in the Royal Scottish Academy than any other living artist.