Social Victorians/People/William Morris

William and Jane Morris edit

Also Known As edit

  • Family name: Morris

Demographics edit

  • Nationality:

Residences edit

  • 17 Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury (November 1856 –)
  • Red House, Upton (–1864)
  • 26 Queen Square, Bloomsbury
  • Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire (1871–)
  • When G.B. Shaw knew him in the 1880s, he lived at Hammersmith Terrace (Holroyd vol. 1., p. 149).

Family edit

  • William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896)
  • Jane Burden ()
    1. Jenny (Jane Alice) Morris (January 1861 – )
    2. May (Mary) Morris (March 1862 – )

Relations edit

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies edit

Acquaintances edit

  • Henry James
  • Charles Eliot Norton
  • Friedrich Engels

Friends edit

  • Edward Burne-Jones and Georgiana Burne-Jones
  • William Fulford
  • Richard Watson Dixon
  • Charles Faulkner
  • Cormell Price
  • Eirikur Magnússon (1868–)
  • Philip Webb
  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
  • Lizzie Siddal
  • Robert Browning
  • Arthur Hughes
  • Thomas Woolner
  • Ford Madox Brown
  • Willfred Scawen Blunt
  • George Bernard Shaw
  • Swinburne
  • Edward Aveling
  • Ernest Belfort Bax
  • Sydney Cockerell
  • Walter Crane
  • John Carruthers
  • the Cobden sisters, including Jane (who later married Thomas Fisher Unwin), Ellen (who later married Walter Sickert) and Anne (who later married Thomas Sanderson)[1]
  • Holman Hunt
  • Whistler
  • Henry Cunninghame (Cunynghame)[2]:242

Enemies edit

Organizations and Social Networks edit

  • Exeter College, Oxford University
  • Birmingham Set
  • Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., "The Firm" (1861–1875), especially successful were the stained-glass windows, replaced by Morris & Co. (1875–)
  • George Edmund Street, architect (January 1856–)
  • Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (1877–)
  • Democratic Federation (–1890)
  • Socialist League (1884–)
  • Kelmscott Press (1891–1898)
  • Commonweal, editor (1885–1889)
  • Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (1888–)

Timeline edit

1859 April 26, William Morris and Jane Burden married.

1881 January 27, Morris was one of the speakers at a luncheon at Kensington Palace, where Lord Ronald Gower remembers him. (Gower 5).

1885 February, demonstration in London on the first anniversary of Marx's death; William Morris was present.

1886 July, William Morris was arrested for speaking about socialism.

1889 June, International Society Working Men's Congress took place in Paris, with William Morris chosen as "English spokesman."[3]

1897 October 3, Morris died. Arnold Dolmetsch was "possibly one of the last people to see him alive. Morris' condition had worsened and, knowing he had not long to live, he called for Dolmetsch so that he might hear the virginals for the last time. Sadly Dolmetsch took his little Italian instrument in a hansom cab to Kelmscott House. There, in the bedroom already inhabited by death, he sat down and softly played the tune that Morris loved so well: The Earle of Salisbury's Pavin. It was a moving experience for them both: Morris, who had found orchestral concerts and piano recitals 'too noisy' and through his friend had come to love the sound of the viols and the virginals: and for Dolmetsch it was one of the few direct tributes that he ever received."[4] (Campbell 103-4).

Questions and Notes edit

References edit

  1. "Jane Cobden". Wikipedia. 2020-07-17. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jane_Cobden&oldid=968077437. 
  2. Cannadine, David. The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. New York: Yale University Press, 1990.
  3. "William Morris". Wikipedia. 2020-08-08. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Morris&oldid=971886594. 
  4. Campbell, Margaret. (1975). Dolmetsch : the man and his work. Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-89176-0. OCLC 906138316. http://worldcat.org/oclc/906138316.  Pp. 103-4.

William Morris's Works edit

  • The Defence of Guenevere. 1857.
  • The Life and Death of Jason. Bell and Dandy, 1867.
  • The Earthly Paradise. F. S. Ellis, 1868–1870.
  • Love is Enough. 1872.
  • A Dream of John Ball. Serialized 1886–87 in Commonweal; volume published by Reeves and Turner, 1888.
  • The House of the Wolfings. 1888.
  • The Roots of the Mountains. 1890.
  • The Story of the Glittering Plain. 1890.
  • News from Nowhere. Serialized 1890 in Commonweal; volume published 1891.
  • The Wood Beyond the World. 1894.
  • The Well at the World's End. 1896.
  • The Water of the Wondrous Isles. 1897.
  • The Sundering Flood. 1898.

General Background edit