Order Form for The Hamptonshire Experiment by C.R. Ashbee

Details

Date: 1884
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K591c
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Author: Hyndman, Henry Mayers (1842 - 1921)
Printer: The Modern Press

This pamphlet was written by William Morris and Henry Hyndman for the Social Democratic Federation, Morris also designed the title page. Morris joined the SDF at its inaugural meeting in June 1881. He had always felt uneasy about the disparity between his comfortable lifestyle and the conditions endured by most of the British working classes. In the 1880s he began working towards overthrowing the system that enabled the rich to profit from their labour, going on marches, writing articles and lecturing all over the country.

Morris and Hyndman had a strained relationship as Morris disagreed with Hyndman’s obsession with parliamentary politics to the detriment of trade union organisation. Morris broke from the SDF in 1884 and went on to establish the Socialist League, a more radical group that sought a revolutionary overturn by the mobilised working classes.

Throughout the decade of his most strenuous political engagement, Morris’s continued to run his business. He did not see campaigning as incompatible with his design work and deeply regretted that his products were so expensive.

Details

Date: 1885
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K604
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Author: Bax, Ernest Belford (1854 - 1926)
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Central Library, 1951

Written on New Year’s Day 1885 by William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, the Manifesto of the Socialist League sets out the aims of the fledgling political group. After splitting from the Social Democratic Federation, Morris along with Bax, Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx and others founded the Socialist League as a more radical group that sought ‘the realization of complete revolutionary Socialism’.

Ernest Belfort Bax was a barrister and historian described by May Morris, William’s younger daughter, as ‘the learned and distinguished philosopher’. Bax taught Morris economics and Marxism in regular sessions that Morris referred to as ‘compulsory Baxination’.

The Socialist League logo featured on this pamphlet was designed by Walter Crane. Crane also produced illustrations for membership cards, invitations and posters for the group. His monochrome illustrations and engravings came to define socialist and trade union imagery for the next thirty years.

Details

Date: 1891
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 (closed)
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K967
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Publisher: Reeves & Turner
Owner: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Miss E. M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

Morris’s ‘News From Nowhere’ was first published in serial form in Commonweal in 1890. In 1891 it was reprinted in book form by Reeves and Turner. It was from this later edition with a few corrections that the text for the Kelmscott Press edition was set up. The illustrated frontispiece, designed by Charles Gere, shows the entrance to Kelmscott Manor, Morris’s country home in Oxfordshire.

Details

Date: May 1870
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K61
Author: Magnusson, Eirikr (1833 - 1913)
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Publisher: Ellis, Frederick Startridge (1830 - 1901)
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Reference Library, 1951

‘The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs’ is a translation of The Völsunga saga (often referred to in English as the Volsunga Saga or Saga of the Völsungs). This legendary saga is a late 13th-century poetic rendition in Old Norse of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan. It was translated for the first time into English by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson in 1870. Morris wrote: “This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks”. This first edition of the Crown octavo book has green cloth binding with stamped gold pattern designed by Philip Webb. Rossetti wrote on 7 May 1870 “His binding for the Volsungs is most lovely- quite perfect”. 750 copies of the book were printed.

Details

Date: 1885-1886
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K405
Editor: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Presented, 1950

The Commonweal was first published in February 1885 with Morris as Editor and one of the principal contributors, both journalistically and financially. He also designed the journal’s headline title. He remained Editor until May 1890, when the paper fell into the hands of the Socialist League’s Anarchist faction. This volume contains issue No.1-50, Feb 1885-25 Dec 1886.

Details

Date: 1883
Dimensions: 24 x 17.3
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K935
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Printer: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., London
Publisher: Allen, George
Credit notes: Miss E.M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and William Morris met through their involvement in the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. This book was published to increase appreciation for the work of seventeenth-century architect Christopher Wren, but it was the title-page that caused the greatest stir. The print on the cover show sinuous, undulating leaves and flowers through which a streamer bearing the title winds, it is flanked at either side by the attenuated form of a peacock.

This edition is smaller edition is in the octavo format and does not feature the Century Guild’s stamp which is seen on the front cover of the larger, quarto editions.

Details

Dimensions: 86.4 x 76.2
Object Type: design
Material: paper
Catalogue number: A305
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1960

Morris’s connection with Christianity was as much aesthetic and historic as spiritual. Originally planning to join the clergy, his contribution to religious life instead came through preserving historic churches and supplying interior decoration such as stained glass windows and textiles. This design, delicately rendered in pencil and watercolour, forms part of the repeat pattern of an embroidered frontal, a cloth used to decorate the altar during services. The grape and vine is a popular motif in ecclesiastical textiles, a reference to the wine that signifies the blood of Christ in the Christian service. This embroidered frontal was advertised in the Morris & Co. catalogue as “a festival altar frontal, 9 ft. wide (capable of being extended) worked in Morris floss silks and gold on ivory satin” and sold for £125.

Details

Date: c. 1912
Dimensions: 27.7 x 22.7
Object Type: archival
Material: paper
Technique: lithograph
Catalogue number: J2169
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Kathleen Wells, 1957

Details

Date: c. 1912
Dimensions: 28.4 x 22.6
Object Type: archival
Material: paper
Technique: lithograph
Catalogue number: J2146
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Griffiths, 1968

Details

Date: c. 1913
Dimensions: 28.4 x 22.6
Object Type: archival
Material: paper
Technique: lithograph
Catalogue number: J2147
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Griffiths, 1968

This catalogue was published by Morris & Co. to advertise its wallpapers. The reverse has George V’s Royal Warrant, which was awarded to Morris & Co. in 1911 for services to the Coronation. Inside the pages list the wallapapers, designers and price of each paper. The latest design it lists is Brentwood, designed by J.H. Dearle in 1913.

Material: paper

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