Morris & Co.

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

Company type	Private company
Industry	Decorative arts, furnishings
Founded	1861
Founder	William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, P. P. Marshall, Philip Webb
Defunct	1875
Fate	Reorganized as Morris & Co.
Successor	Morris & Co. (1875–1940)
Headquarters	London , England
Area served	United Kingdom, international
Key people	William Morris, John Henry Dearle, May Morris
Products	Handcrafted home furnishings including carved woodwork, stained glass, metal items, wallpaper, printed textiles, carpets, embroidery, jewelry, woven rugs, silk damasks, tapestries

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. operated from 1861 to 1875 as a producer and retailer of decorative furnishings, established by artist and designer William Morris alongside his Pre-Raphaelite collaborators. Its successor, Morris & Co. (1875–1940), championed a medieval-inspired style combined with traditional artisanal techniques, significantly shaping church and domestic decoration well into the early 1900s.

Although most influential during the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s and 1890s, Morris & Co. maintained limited activities after World War I until its closure in 1940. Today, its designs continue to be licensed by Sanderson & Sons, part of the Walker Greenbank group which owns the "Morris & Co." brand, as well as by Liberty of London.

Early years

Founded in 1861 by Morris along with Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, P. P. Marshall, and Philip Webb, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. described itself as "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals." The company specialized in handcrafted home furnishings inspired by medieval designs. Its product range included carved woodwork, stained glass, metal items, wallpaper, printed textiles, and carpets. Their initial workshop was located at 8 Red Lion Square, London.

The firm quickly gained recognition following its participation in the 1862 International Exhibition. In 1864, due to illness, Morris faced a choice between maintaining his residence at Red House in Kent or continuing his London-based work; he opted to leave Red House and relocated the workshops in 1865 to more spacious premises on Queen Square in Bloomsbury.

Early commissions were largely church-related, driven by a mid-19th-century surge in Church of England construction and restoration projects, particularly for stained glass. However, an economic slump in the late 1860s diminished this market segment, prompting the company to pivot towards secular projects. The product portfolio broadened to encompass furniture, metalwork and glassware, textiles and wallpaper hangings, embroidery, jewelry, woven rugs, silk damasks, and tapestries.

By 1862 Morris had begun designing repeating wallpaper patterns; six years later he created his first fabric print design. He preferred traditional hand woodblock printing methods over mechanized roller printing.

Reorganization and expansion

In August 1874 Morris initiated a restructuring of the partnership which led to disagreements with Marshall, Rossetti, and Madox Brown concerning financial returns. As a result, the original company was dissolved and reformed under Morris's sole proprietorship as Morris & Co. on 31 March 1875.

During this transition period, Morris placed significant emphasis on dyeing within his manufacturing operations. He collaborated extensively with Thomas Wardle’s Staffordshire dye works to refine dyeing techniques and revive historic practices. His efforts brought renewed viability to indigo dyeing and reintroduced vegetable dyes such as madder that had fallen out of favor due to synthetic aniline dyes.

Mastery over dyeing woolens, silks, and cottons was crucial for achieving high-quality woven and printed textiles. Following a period focused on dye experimentation (1875–76), Morris turned his attention to textile production (1877–78), notably revitalizing carpet weaving as an artisanal craft.

In June 1881 the dyeworks were relocated from Queen Square to the historic Merton Abbey Works situated on the River Wandle. The river’s water was ideal for dyeing processes. This expansive seven-acre site comprised multiple buildings adapted for stained glass production, textile printing, and weaving of fabrics and carpets.

By 1879 Morris had taught himself medieval tapestry weaving techniques and founded a tapestry workshop at Queen Square with apprentice John Henry Dearle. In 1883 Dearle completed Morris & Co.’s first figural tapestry based on a Walter Crane design. Dearle soon assumed responsibility for training all tapestry apprentices at the enlarged Merton Abbey facility and collaborated closely with Morris on fabric motifs and floral backgrounds for tapestries featuring figure sketches by Burne-Jones alongside animal imagery by Philip Webb. Coordinated suites of tapestries became central elements of comprehensive interior decoration schemes; motifs such as Burne-Jones’s angels and Arthurian legends remained iconic within Morris & Co.’s offerings into the twentieth century.

Significant commissions

The company’s earliest projects, including stained glass and decorative schemes for St Michael's Church, Brighton, All Saints Church, Selsley, and Jesus Chapel, Cambridge, were commissioned by architect G F Bodley in the early 1860s. During the late 1860s, two prominent secular assignments further enhanced the firm's prestige: a royal project at St. James's Palace and the creation of the "green dining room" at the South Kensington Museum (present-day Victoria and Albert Museum) in 1867. This green dining room, now preserved as the Morris Room at the V&A, showcased stained glass and panel figures by Burne-Jones, decorative panels crafted by Morris, and a frieze designed by Philip Webb. The commission for St. James's Palace involved stylized floral motifs painted across ceilings, cornices, dados, windows, and doors.

In 1871, Morris & Co. produced windows for All Saints near Stourport-on-Severn, designed by Burne-Jones specifically for Alfred Baldwin’s family.

Standen, located near East Grinstead in West Sussex, was designed by Philip Webb between 1892 and 1894 for solicitor James Beale and his family. The house was furnished with Morris carpets, fabrics, and wallpapers.

In 1895, Morris & Co created Garden Tulip wallpaper designs for the private quarters of Nicholas II within the Imperial Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia—a fact confirmed by curators at the State Hermitage Museum.

The firm's final major decorating commission before William Morris’s death in 1896 was Stanmore Hall—its largest project to date. This included a series of Holy Grail tapestries for the dining room overseen by Morris himself, with additional contributions directed by Dearle.

Other noteworthy commissions encompassed the dining room ceiling at Charleville Forest Castle, interiors of Bullers Wood House (now Bullers Wood School) in Chislehurst, Kent, and stained glass installations at Adcote.

Final phases

As William Morris shifted his focus toward socialism and the operations of the Kelmscott Press, daily management responsibilities were transferred to others. His daughter May took charge of the embroidery department starting in 1885, while John Henry Dearle—who had been designing repeating wallpaper and textile patterns since the late 1880s—assumed the role of head designer by 1890. Dearle oversaw interior design projects as well as supervised tapestry production, weaving, and fabric printing at Merton Abbey.

For many years Dearle’s textile contributions were eclipsed by Morris’s legacy; he exhibited under the Morris name at various Arts and Crafts Exhibitions and during the 1899 retrospective dedicated to Morris. Numerous designs created by Dearle, May Morris, and contemporaries such as Kathleen Kersey continue to be sold under the "William Morris" brand.

Following William Morris’s death in 1896, Dearle was appointed art director as the firm was renamed Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd. in 1905. The company maintained its production of high-quality stained glass into the 1920s; for instance, Holy Trinity Church in Elsecar features several windows dating from 1922. Dearle remained responsible for textile operations at Merton Abbey until his passing in 1932. The firm ultimately ceased operations early during World War II.

Printed textiles and wallpapers

Throughout William Morris's era, Morris & Co. produced a variety of repeating motifs available as both block-printed wallpaper and fabric. Numerous patterns from this period continue to be produced today by contemporary manufacturers in these two forms.

See also

• Art needlework
• British and Irish stained glass (1811–1918)
• Decorative Designers
• May Morris
• Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Stained glass
• Victorian Era
• William Morris wallpaper designs

References

• Fairclough, Oliver, and Emmeline Leary, Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co. 1861-1940, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1981,
• Mackail, J. W., The Life of William Morris, two volumes, London et al.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899
  • Google Books Volume I and Volume II (1911 reprint) retrieved August 2008
• Mackail, J. W., "William Morris," in The Dictionary of National Biography. Supp. vol. 3 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1901), pp. 197–203; reproduced at William Morris Society
• Parry, Linda, "Textiles", in The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by William Morris and his Circle in Canadian Collections, eds. Katharine A. Lochnan et al., Key Porter Books, 1993,
• Parry, Linda, ed.: William Morris, Abrams, 1996,
• Parry, Linda: William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook, New York: Portland House, 1989
• Parry, Linda: William Morris Textiles, New York: Viking Press, 1983
• Parry, Linda: Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Thames and Hudson (rev. ed.), 2005
• Waggoner, Diane: The Beauty of Life: William Morris & the Art of Design, Thames and Hudson, 2003

Further reading

• Morris & Company, A Brief Sketch of the Morris Movement and of the Firm Founded by William Morris to Carry Out His Designs and the Industries Revived or Started by Him, commemorating the firm's fiftieth anniversary, 1911.

External links

• Morris & Co. by David Cody, Victorian Web
• Morris & Co. windows in Cumbria and New York
• The Vanderpoel Window in Saugerties, New York
• Trellis Wallpaper, Victoria and Albert Museum
• William Morris Wallpaper, Victoria and Albert Museum
• Oscar Wilde, Joseph Worcester, and the English Arts & Crafts Movement
• Morris & Co. collection at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
• Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-dreamer, exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art