Morris , William , 1834-1896 , designer, craftsman, poet and socialist

Born 1834; educated Marlborough College and Exeter College, Oxford University, 1853-1856, where he met Edward Coley Burne-Jones; entered Oxford office of the gothic revivalist architect, George Edmund Street, 1856; financed first 12 monthly issues of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856; persuaded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti to give up architecture for painting, and joined a group painting the walls of the Oxford Union with scenes from Arthurian legend, 1856; shared a studio in Red Lion Square with Burne-Jones, 1856-1859; married Jane Burden, 1859; commissioned Philip Speakman Webb to build the Red House at Bexleyheath, 1859-1860; founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, 1861, which included Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti, Webb and Burne-Jones and produced fine art furniture, stained glass and embroideries; moved to Bloomsbury, 1865; published various works of poetry, including The defence of Guenevere, 1858, the Death of Jason, 1867, The Earthly Paradise, 1868-1870, and the Book of Verse, 1870; moved to Kelmscott, Oxfordshire, 1871; visited Iceland, 1871 and 1873; reorganised the firm under his sole proprietorship as Morris and Co, 1874, and began revolutionary experiments with vegetable dyes; gave first public lecture on 'The Decorative Arts', 1877, and published Hopes and fears for Art, 1882; founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 1877; moved to Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, 1878; moved the firm to Merton Abbey, Surrey, 1881; joined the Democratic (later Social Democratic) Federation, 1883; formed the Socialist League and the Hammersmith Socialist Society, 1884; started the Kelmscott Press, 1891; died 1896.