William Morris

British textile artist, author, and socialist (1834-1896)

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Lived 1834–1896, aged 62United Kingdom

United Kingdom ArtistsArtist

Wikipedia
59 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1834–1896
Aged 62

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

William Morris turned against the machine age by mastering what machines were killing: hand-blocked wallpaper, vegetable-dyed textiles, illuminated books bound in vellum. His patterns still paper Victorian homes, but he spent his last decades preaching revolution.

Biography

About

Born in 1834 to Essex wealth, Morris fell hard for medieval romance at Oxford and never quite left it. He married Jane Burden, befriended the Pre-Raphaelites, and in 1861 opened a decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and architect Philip Webb that remade Victorian interiors — tapestries, stained glass, fabrics, furniture. From a rented manor in Oxfordshire he translated Icelandic sagas, wrote fantasy epics like The Earthly Paradise and the utopian News from Nowhere, and grew steadily more radical. Reading Marx in the 1880s, he became a revolutionary socialist, founded the Socialist…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from William Morris

William Morris

said1885

What is this, the sound and rumour?

— "The March of the Workers", st. 1, in Chants for Socialists (1885)

William Morris

said1882

I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration.

— "The History of Pattern-Designing" lecture (1882) The Collected Works of William Morris (1910 - 1915) Vol. 22

William Morris

said19 Feb 1880

If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

— "The Beauty of Life", a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and

William Morris

said1880