This miniature shows the mother of William Morris. It was probably painted to celebrate her engagement to William Morris Snr. Emma was the daughter of Joseph Shelton who had been a neighbour of the Morrises in Worcester.
After Emma and William married they lived over William’s business premises in Lombard Street, London but in 1833 after the birth of their first two children, they moved to Elm House, Clay Street, Walthamstow from where William Morris Snr. travelled in daily to the city by stage coach. It was at Elm Lodge that William Morris, was born in 1834 – his parents’ eldest son and third child; six more children were to follow.
In 1840 the the family moved to Woodford Hall, a Georgian mansion standing in fifty acres of park adjoining Epping Forest. Seven years later Wiliam Morris Snr. died and Emma and the children moved to a smaller house, Water House (now the William Morris Gallery) where she remained until 1856. Emma later moved to Leyton House, and finally to The Lordship, Much Hadham, where she died at the age of 89 in 1894.
