William Morris (1834-96)

William Morris was a man of enormous talent and industry who is remembered as a poet, an artist, a designer, a businessman and a socialist reformer. While at Oxford University he met a circle of artists which became known (and famous) as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and included Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. In 1861 Morris founded William Morris & Co. with Rossetti and Burne-Jones as partners, and produced a wide range of practical and decorative goods such as textiles, wallpaper, furniture, stained glass, and ceramics, emphasising craftsmanship and the natural beauty of materials in a reaction against the heavily ornate and mass-produced goods of the Victorian era. Morris provided a key stimulus to the Arts and Crafts movement, and was in part responsible for a number of important craft workshops established in the Cotswold area.

Examples of the work of Morris & Co can be found throughout the Cotswold area and there is an excellent collection of Arts and Crafts furniture in Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery. The Church of All Saints at Selsley (near Stroud) is of particular interest as the stained glass was entirely produced by Morris & Co. and includes designs by Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Ford Maddox Brown, the architect Philip Webb and others.

The stained glass to the left is a detail from the Sermon on the Mount by Rossetti, and the spectacular and utterly wonderful window to the right is by Morris and Webb and shows the seven days of creation. The picture, by the way, does no justice to the original.

William Morris owned a country house at Kelmscott Manor in the village of Kelmscott near Lechlade. It can be viewed by arrangement with the trustees (see Things to See).

Return to the Cotswold Hyperguide History Page