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  Victoria and Albert Museum

  London, United Kingdom

  4 works

  Daily 10:00–17:45, Friday 10:00–22:00 · Free

  The V&A on Cromwell Road in London is the definitive Morris archive, holding manuscripts, textile samples, and the three 1860 figure studies Woman Drinking from a Fountain, Woman Holding a Small Book, and Woman Gathering Fruit. These rare drawn figures sit alongside his wallpapers and stained-glass cartoons.

  

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  Kelmscott Manor

  Kelmscott, United Kingdom

  2 works

  Kelmscott Manor, Morris's Oxfordshire country home from 1871 until his death in 1896, is now held by the Society of Antiquaries. The interior preserves his personal textiles and furniture in situ, including the Embroidered Border (1890) and the early Venus (or Aphrodite) (1860) stitched with Jane Morris.

  

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Plan your visit to see William Morris →

• Who was William Morris?+

  William Morris (1834-1896) was a British designer, poet, manufacturer and socialist. He was born at Elm House in Walthamstow on 24 March 1834, and the family later moved to Woodford Hall and then to the Walthamstow house that is now the William Morris Gallery. He went up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1852 intending to enter the Church, and met Edward Burne-Jones there in his first weeks. Reading Ruskin's The Stones of Venice across 1853 and 1854 redirected him. He was articled to the architect G. E. Street in 1856, met Philip Webb in Street's office, then met Dante Gabriel Rossetti and gave up architecture for painting by the end of that year. He married Jane Burden in April 1859, and Webb built Red House for them at Upton in Kent. Furnishing it led directly to the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., founded in April 1861 and reconstituted as Morris & Co. in 1875 with Morris as sole owner. It produced stained glass, textiles, carpets, wallpapers and furniture. He founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877 and was its first secretary. From 1881 he was active in socialist politics, and in 1890 he started the Kelmscott Press. Mary Greensted calls him the father-figure of the Arts and Crafts movement.
• What is William Morris famous for designing?+

  Morris is best known for wallpapers and printed textiles, and for patterns drawn from plants he could see growing. Willow Bough of 1887, among his most popular papers, came from the willows along the stream at Kelmscott. Several printed cottons take their names from Cotswold streams that feed the Thames, including Evenlode and Windrush. Trellis wallpaper, from about 1864, was based on the rose trellises in the garden at Red House. The range was wider than pattern. The firm founded in 1861 produced stained glass, furniture, embroidery and carpets, and Morris worked out the hand-knotting of rugs and carpets himself by close study of Persian examples. He returned to natural dyes and set up a dye house at Queen Square, and the Merton Abbey works, opened in 1881, put dyeing and weaving on one site. High-warp weaving started there in 1883, and in 1888 he lectured on weaving technique at the first exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. He also designed books. The Kelmscott Press, begun in 1890 with Emery Walker, involved designing and casting new type, insisting on hand-made linen paper, and treating the extra space between lines as a fault to avoid. Its Chaucer, with eighty-six pictures by Edward Burne-Jones, was finished in 1896.
• What is William Morris's art style called?+

  Morris's style is called Arts and Crafts, and he is usually named as the movement's central figure. It took shape in Britain in the last decades of the nineteenth century and set craftsmanship, honest materials and the dignity of the maker against factory production. The name attached to Morris because he built the argument into a business rather than only writing it. The firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was founded in April 1861 as a direct outcome of furnishing Red House, and the partners called themselves Fine Art Workmen, which was a claim about status as much as a description. The firm was reconstituted as Morris & Co. in 1875 with Morris as sole owner. His patterns are the most recognisable part of the style: flattened plant forms, repeating structures that stay legible across a wall, and colours from natural dyes. Trellis, Willow Bough and Strawberry Thief are the designs most people picture. The movement outlasted him. Writing in 1888, while Morris was still alive, the architect John D. Sedding called him the one man who above all others had inspired hope and brought life and light into modern manufactures. Arts and Crafts went on to shape design teaching, the private press revival, and building conservation in Britain and well beyond it.
• Where can I see Strawberry Thief?+

  The original Strawberry Thief printed cotton, designed by Morris in 1883, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum^[4], Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Because it was produced as a furnishing fabric rather than a single object, lengths and samples are also held by other museums with Morris & Co. collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Cleveland Museum of Art. As with most textiles, display is rotated to limit light damage, so check the museum's collection pages before travelling if you want to see a specific piece rather than Morris's work generally. The design was printed at the Merton Abbey works, which opened in 1881 and put dye vats and looms on one site. Morris had returned to natural dyes after his 1875 experiments with Thomas Wardle at Leek, and set up a dye house at Queen Square before Merton Abbey gave him the space to work at scale. The name comes from the thrushes that stole fruit in the garden at Kelmscott Manor^[6], the Oxfordshire house he had taken jointly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871 and described as a jewel of a house. For Morris's range in one place rather than this design in particular, the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow is the better visit.
• Where is the William Morris Gallery?+

  The William Morris Gallery is in Lloyd Park, Walthamstow, London E17 4PP. It is a short walk from Walthamstow Central station, entry is free, and the telephone number is 020 8496 4390. The building was the Morris family home. He was born nearby at Elm House in Walthamstow on 24 March 1834, and the family moved here while he was a boy, so the collection sits in the place he grew up rather than in a building chosen later for the purpose. The displays cover his whole working life rather than the wallpapers alone: printed and woven textiles, wallpapers, stained glass, furniture and books from the Kelmscott Press, alongside work by the Century Guild and other designers of the Arts and Crafts movement. Tile designs are among the pieces on show. It is the best single starting point in London for seeing his range in one visit. For the textiles in depth, the Victoria and Albert Museum^[4] on Cromwell Road holds the original Strawberry Thief printed cotton of 1883 and a substantial Morris & Co. collection. Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, his London home, gave the Kelmscott Press its name, and Kelmscott Manor^[6] in Oxfordshire was the country house he took jointly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871.
• Where can I see William Morris work in London?+

  Two places carry most of it. The William Morris Gallery in Lloyd Park, Walthamstow, E17 4PP, was the Morris family home and holds work across his whole range, from wallpapers and textiles to stained glass, furniture and Kelmscott Press books, alongside pieces by the Century Guild and other Arts and Crafts designers. Entry is free. The Victoria and Albert Museum^[4] on Cromwell Road, South Kensington, SW7 2RL, holds the deeper textile collection, including the original Strawberry Thief printed cotton of 1883 and three figure studies from 1860: Woman Drinking from a Fountain, Woman Holding a Small Book and Woman Gathering Fruit. Textiles are rotated to limit light damage, so check the collection pages before travelling for a specific piece. Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, at 26 Upper Mall, was his London home and gave the Kelmscott Press its name. The Society's premises there open to visitors on limited days, so check before going. Outside London, Kelmscott Manor^[6] in Oxfordshire was the country house he took jointly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871 and called a jewel of a house. It is now held by the Society of Antiquaries and keeps his own textiles and furniture in place.
• What is the most famous William Morris pattern?+

  William Morris produced many popular designs for wallpapers and textiles. His Willow Bough pattern, designed in 1887, is among his most recognisable. Morris's daughter May recalled that the design took inspiration from the willow trees growing along the stream at Kelmscott Manor^[6], his country home in Oxfordshire. Morris leased Kelmscott Manor with Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. He described it as 'a jewel of a house'. Morris found solace in the craftsmanship and orderliness of the local architecture, flowers, plants, and fishing. The names of several of his designs reflect the inspiration of the Cotswolds. These include the printed cottons Evenlode and Windrush, named after local streams that feed into the Thames. Snakeshead takes its name from the snake's head fritillary growing wild in the fields around his country home. Another well-known early design is Trellis wallpaper, circa 1864. This pattern was based on the rose trellises around the well-court in the garden at Red House, Bexleyheath, one-time home of Morris and his family. Examples of Morris's tile designs can be viewed at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London.
• Why is William Morris wallpaper still made today?+

  The designs kept selling, and the firm that made them kept trading. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was founded in 1861 and became Morris & Co. in 1875, and its patterns were commercially successful in his own lifetime: by 1883 the firm was described as a household word for anyone wanting surroundings that were beautiful but still fit for ordinary use. The patterns themselves wear well because of how they are built. Morris drew from plants he could see, then flattened and repeated the forms so they stay legible across a whole wall rather than fighting the room. Willow Bough of 1887 came from the willows along the stream at Kelmscott. Trellis, from about 1864, came from the rose trellises in the garden at Red House. Several printed cottons take their names from Cotswold streams that feed the Thames, including Evenlode and Windrush. His colour came from the return to natural dyes, which he took up seriously in 1875 with Thomas Wardle at Leek and pursued at the dye house in Queen Square and later at Merton Abbey. There is an irony in the modern trade. Morris objected to industrial production on principle, and much of the wallpaper sold under his name today is machine-printed from his original designs.
• What was the Arts and Crafts movement?+

  The Arts and Crafts movement was a British design and social reform movement that emerged in the 1860s and reached its peak between 1880 and 1910. Its founders, including William Morris, John Ruskin, and Philip Webb, rejected the factory production methods of the Industrial Revolution and the heavily-ornamented machine-made goods that filled Victorian homes. The movement insisted on three things: that design and making should not be separated, that materials should be used honestly (oak should look like oak, never stained to mimic mahogany), and that the maker should take pleasure in the work. Morris put it plainly in a lecture: nothing should be in a home that is not known to be useful or believed to be beautiful. In practice, this meant a return to medieval guild traditions, hand-block-printed textiles instead of roller-printed ones, hand-thrown ceramics instead of moulded ones, and architecture rooted in vernacular British forms. Morris and Co., founded in 1861, produced wallpapers, fabrics, stained glass, furniture, and tapestries under these principles for the next sixty years. The movement spread beyond Britain to the United States (Stickley, Greene and Greene), Austria (the Vienna Secession), and Germany (the Werkbund and later the Bauhaus). Its ideas about honest materials and integrated design fed directly into twentieth-century modernism, even when later modernists rejected its medievalism.
• Why did Morris become a socialist?+

  William Morris's embrace of socialism in 1883 stemmed from a growing disillusionment with industrial society and a desire for meaningful work for all. He saw the capitalist system as creating a vulgarity that destroyed art and fostered greed. Morris believed the middle classes were particularly constrained by this system, struggling to avoid poverty while remaining shielded from the suffering of the working class. The Democratic Federation, founded in 1881, provided Morris with a potential path forward. This socialist organisation, inspired by Karl Marx, attracted high-profile figures. Morris joined the Federation on 13 January 1883. He threw himself into the socialist cause, lecturing across Britain on art, work, and society. In 1884, he visited twelve towns and cities, delivering multiple talks in each location. His lectures were published in magazines and cheap editions, disseminating his ideas widely. Morris subsidised *Justice*, the Democratic Federation's organ, and co-authored *A Summary of the Principles of Socialism* with H.M. Hyndman. However, disagreements with Hyndman led to Morris's resignation and the formation of the Socialist League in 1885, with Morris as editor of its journal, *Commonweal*. Despite his efforts, disagreements between parliamentarians and anarchists damaged the Socialist League. In 1890, the Hammersmith Branch, of which Morris was a member, separated from the League due to growing anarchist tendencies. Morris's socialist beliefs were a direct response to the social and artistic problems he perceived in Victorian England.
• What was the Kelmscott Press?+

  The Kelmscott Press was the printing operation Morris started in 1890, working with Emery Walker on designing and casting a new typeface. It took its name from Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, his London home, and was run from that part of Hammersmith rather than from Kelmscott Manor^[6], the Oxfordshire house he used as a summer retreat. Morris set out his aim himself: he began printing books "with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read". He wanted them free of eccentric lettering, which he regarded as a distraction rather than a style. The specifications went down to the material. Paper had to be hand-made and wholly of linen rather than cotton, and hard rather than soft; his letters from early 1891 include orders placed with the papermaker Joseph Batchelor. Leading, the extra vertical space set between lines, he treated as a fault of modern printing, to be used as little as possible and never without a definite reason. The most ambitious book was the Chaucer, carrying eighty-six pictures designed by Edward Burne-Jones. It was begun in the summer of 1894 and finished in the spring of 1896, a few months before Morris died. He had broken with the bookseller Bernard Quaritch over pricing in December 1892 and published it himself.
• Where was William Morris born?+

  William Morris was born on 24 March 1834 at Elm House in Walthamstow, then a village on the north-eastern edge of London and now part of the borough of Waltham Forest. The family later moved to another Walthamstow house which is now the William Morris Gallery, in Lloyd Park, E17 4PP. It holds work by Morris, by the Century Guild, and by other designers of the Arts and Crafts movement. It is the obvious starting point for anyone tracing his life on the ground, and entry is free. From Walthamstow he went to Exeter College, Oxford in 1852, where he met Edward Burne-Jones in his first weeks. The houses associated with his later life are elsewhere. Red House at Upton in Kent, now Bexleyheath, was built for him by Philip Webb after his marriage in 1859, on an orchard and meadow he bought with inherited money. Kelmscott Manor^[6] in Oxfordshire, which he took jointly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871 and called a jewel of a house, was his summer retreat. Kelmscott House in Hammersmith was his London home and gave its name to the Kelmscott Press.