William Morris (1834 - 1896)

The son of a stockbroker, Morris was born in 1834. From childhood he was fascinated by the Middle Ages. At Exeter College, Oxford, in 1853, he met Burne-Jones and they became lifelong friends. Originally destined for the Church, both men left university instead and became artists, after a tour of French Cathedrals.

Through Burne-Jones, he met Rossetti in 1856, was encouraged to take up painting and took part in the Oxford Union mural campaign. He married Jane Burden in 1859 and Philip Webb designed their new home, Red House, at Bexleyheath, Kent. This became a testing-ground for the firm of artist-craftsmen launched in 1861 as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company. Morris himself made many of the firm's early designs for textiles, wallpaper and stained glass. In 1875 the business was re-constituted as Morris and Company, with Burne-Jones effectively its sole designer of stained glass. Demand for carpets and woven textiles culminated in the 'Holy Grail' series, designed by Burne-Jones in the 1890s.

From 1868, Morris worked on a cycle of narrative poems and translations of the medieval sagas of Iceland, which he visited twice. A founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877, Morris was also central to the Arts and Crafts Movement. Concerned with the welfare of workers, he founded the Socialist League in 1884. His last project was the Kelmscott Press; he died shortly after the folio 'Chaucer' was published in 1896.