WILLIAM MORRIS

1834-96

1834. Born at Walthamstow, March 24.
1848-51. Marlborough College.
1853-5. Exeter College, Oxford.
1856. Studies architecture under Street.
1857. Red Lion Square; influence of D. G. Rossetti.
1858. Defence of Guenevere.
1859. Marries Miss Jane Burden.
1860-5. 'Red House', Upton, Kent.
1861. Firm of Art Decorators founded in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. (Dissolved and refounded 1875.)
1867-8. Life and Death of Jason. 1868-70. Earthly Paradise.
1870. Tenant of Kelmscott Manor House, on the Upper Thames.
1871-3. Visits to Iceland; work on Icelandic Sagas.
1876. Sigurd the Volsung.
1878. Tenant of Kelmscott House, Hammersmith.
1881. Works moved to Merton.
1883-4. Active member of Social Democratic Federation.
1884-90. Founder and active member of Socialist League.
1891. Kelmscott Press founded.
1892-6. Preparation and printing of Kelmscott Chaucer.
1896. Death at Hammersmith, October 3.
1896. Burial at Kelmscott, Oxfordshire.

WILLIAM MORRIS

Craftsman and Social Reformer

In general it is difficult to account for the birth of an original man at a particular place and time. As Carlyle says: 'Priceless Shakespeare was the free gift of nature, given altogether silently, received altogether silently.' Of his childhood history has almost nothing to relate, and what is true of Shakespeare is true in large measure of Burns, of Shelley, of Keats. Even in an age when records are more common, we can only discern a little and can explain less of the silent influences at work that begin to make the man. There are few things more surprising than that, in an age given up chiefly to industrial development, two prosperous middle-class homes should have given birth to John Ruskin and William Morris, so alien in temper to all that traditionally springs from such a soil. In the case of Morris there is nothing known of his ancestry to explain his rich and various gifts. From a child he seemed to have found some spring within himself which drew him instinctively to all that was beautiful in nature, in art, in books. His earliest companions were the Waverley Novels, which he began at the age of four and finished at seven; his earliest haunt was Epping Forest, where he roamed and dreamed through many of the years of his youth.

His father, who was in business in the City of London, as partner in a bill-broking firm, lived at different times at Walthamstow and at Woodford; and the hills of the forest, in some places covered with thick growth of hornbeam or of beech, in others affording a wide view over the levels of the lower Thames, impressed themselves so strongly on the boy's memory and imagination that this scenery often recurred in the setting of tales which he wrote in middle life.

There was no need of external aid to develop these tastes; and Morris was fortunate in going to a school which did no violence to them by forcing him into other less congenial pursuits. Marlborough College, at the time when he went there in 1848, had only been open a few years. The games were not organized but left to voluntary effort; and during his three or four years at school Morris never took part in cricket or football. In the latter game, at any rate, he should have proved a notable performer on unorthodox lines, impetuous, forcible, and burly as he was. But he found no reason to regret the absence of games, or to feel that time hung heavy on his hands. The country satisfied his wants, the Druidic stones at Avebury, the green water-meadows of the Kennet, the deep glades of Savernake Forest. So strong was the spell of nature, that he hardly felt the need for companionship; and, as chance had not yet thrown him into close relations with any friend of similar tastes, he lived much alone.