William Morris

Lifetime

1834–1896

Country

United Kingdom

He was born on 24 March 1834 at Elm House in Walthamstow, Essex. He was educated at Marlborough and Exeter College, Oxford. Initially, he intended to take holy orders, but changed his plans under the influence of the social criticism of Carlyle, Kingsley and Ruskin. He briefly worked under the Gothic Revival architect G.E. Street, after which he decided to become a painter.

The beginning of his career as a designer was the furnishing of Red House in Bexleyheath, a house built for him by Philip Webb, where he lived from 1859 to 1865; the glass for the house was supplied by the London glassworks James Powell & Sons. In 1861, the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was established; in 1875 it was replaced by Morris & Co. under his sole direction. In 1881, he moved part of the production to a former silk-weaving mill at Merton Abbey. He designed his first wallpaper pattern, Trellis, in 1862. The firm was particularly known for its stained glass, for which Morris created around 150 designs, while textile and wallpaper patterns are regarded as his greatest achievement.

He was also politically active: in 1876 he became treasurer of the Eastern Question Association, in 1883 he joined the socialist Democratic Federation, and after a dispute with its leader H.M. Hyndman he formed the Socialist League, later establishing the Hammersmith Socialist Society. He was a poet, the author of, among other works, “The Defence of Guenevere” and “The Earthly Paradise”, a translator of Icelandic and classical literature, and a prose writer, including “News from Nowhere”.

Towards the end of his life, he founded the Kelmscott Press publishing house in Hammersmith, near his Kelmscott House, for which he designed three typefaces: Golden, Chaucer and Troy. It published 66 volumes, including an edition of Chaucer’s works from 1896. He died on 3 October 1896 in Hammersmith; the Tate collection includes, among other works, his 1858 painting “La Belle Iseult”.