In 1937, Cedric Morris co-founded with his partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, the influencial East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham in Suffolk. Lucian Freud became a pupil in 1939 at the age of seventeen after he was told by a friend that it was the only place to study art. He later commented that 'Cedric Morris taught me to paint and more important to keep at it. He did not say much, but let me watch him at work. I have always admired him and everything about him ...'

Milly Gomersall met Cedric Morris in London in 1936 and later enrolled as a student of the School when it opened the following April. She then married and re-entered Cedric and Lett's lives thirty years later to become their housekeeper and companion at Benton End until their deaths
(See R. Morphet, loc cit., and p.113)