Description:In 1884 Oscar Wilde delivered a lecture to “an expectant and fashionable audience”. He spoke for nearly two hours in language described by the press as “humorous, poetical, critical and satirical”. In the course of his lecture he paid tribute to Mr Thomas Wardle and to Leek saying that “in no town in England was a greater work being done in the cause of decorative art”. The proceeds of the evening were put to furnishing the new art rooms in the Nicholson Institute.