In search of an earthly paradise

Famous for urging us to have nothing in our homes that is not useful or beautiful, William Morris’s masterful command of pattern and Arts-and-Crafts design masked a deeply unhappy marriage, says Michael Montagu

- Michael Montagu

WILLIAM MORRIS championed such an extraordinarily diverse range of Arts and interests that making an exact classification of him is difficult to achieve. A poet, romance writer, critic, socialist reformer, scholar and, above all, a prolific designer, he was a man for whom the word polymath was coined.

Born in Walthamstow on March 24, 1834, he was the third child and eldest son of a highly successful city broker. The family enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, settling at the Woodford Hall estate in Essex. By all accounts, Morris was an indulged child, who is said to have enjoyed wearing a miniature copy of a medieval suit of armour when riding his Shetland pony in Epping Forest.

At the age of eight, his father took him to Canterbury Cathedral, an experience that he later described as feeling as if the gates of Heaven had opened for him. The memory of this first visit certainly seems to have remained in his mind, as, when he became involved with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), which he called the ‘anti scrapes’, his first project was the restoration of Canterbury’s choir.

Young William spent his time visiting churches and forests and enthusiastically reading the novels of Sir Walter Scott, all childhood pursuits that surely helped in the development of his love of Nature and historical romance. Indeed, his ideas pertaining to design were firmly established by the time he was 16. During a visit to London in 1851, Morris refused to go to the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, because its emphasis on mass-produced goods was contrary to his belief in traditional craftsmanship.