A Summary of the Principles of Socialism: Written for the Democratic Federation

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: 1861
Dimensions: 61.6 x 59.7
Object Type: design
Material: pen, ink, wash on paper
Catalogue number: A266
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882

One of seven designs (WMG A263 -A269) by Gabriel Dante Rossetti from 1861, for stained glass executed by Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co., for St. Martin’s Scarborough . The series is referred to in a letter from Rossetti to Ford Madox Brown (1 December 1861) (Doughty & Wahl, ‘Letters of D G Rossetti’. O.U.P. 1965, Vol.ii p.426): ‘I’m doing the Parable of the Vineyard for the shop glass; I think you have a number of ‘The Pictorial History of England’ with a Saxon wine-press in it. Would you kindly send it to me by book post? If you’ve anything else in the Vineyard line you might include it …’.
The seven panels were designed for the East Window of St. Martin’s, together with a Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St. John by Ford Madox Brown. All seven panels were shown at the International Exhibition, London 1862 before being installed in the church.

Details

Date: 1861
Dimensions: 60.9 x 91.4
Object Type: design
Material: pen, ink, wash on paper
Catalogue number: A268
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882

Details

Date: 1861
Object Type: design
Material: pen, ink, wash on paper
Catalogue number: A265
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882

Details

Date: 1861
Dimensions: 61.6 x 60.9
Object Type: design
Material: ink on paper
Catalogue number: A264
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882

Details

Date: c.1865
Dimensions: 63 x 37.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, sepia and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A261
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This design for a stained-glass window shows a king wearing a crown whilst holding a sword and spectre. The design was first used for a small two light window in the north aisle of St. Stephen’s parish church, near St. Peter Port, Guernsey 1865 for the figure of Josiah.

The same design was later used for the figure of King Alfred in the chancel East window of St. Mary’s, Bloxham, Oxfordshire in 1869 and again as King Alfred in the east window of St. James, Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire in 1876.

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

Date: 1896
Dimensions: 47 x 67.3
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A214
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)

‘Compton’ was previously thought to have been William Morris’s last repeating textile design, as recorded by May Morris in her ‘Collected Works of William Morris’. However, following Linda Parry’s research the design has been ascribed to John Henry Dearle. Morris and Co. re-designed the interior of Compton Hall, Wolverhampton, in 1895-6 for Laurence W. Hodson. Although Morris had a hand in some of the designs (this is confirmed in surviving letters), there is no evidence that he was sole designer for any of the new items designed specifically for the house. Rather he and Dearle worked together, sending designs back and forth. The evidence to suggest this is in fact Dearle’s design is further strengthened by its similarity to his other work, particularly ‘Leicester’ wallpaper. The design was registered as a wallpaper and printed cotton on 27 February 1896.

Details

Date: c. 1878-85
Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and ink on paper
Catalogue number: A212
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This sketch by William Morris was likely intended for a woven textile repeat pattern, but was never realised. It bears a resemblance to a number of bird designs Morris & Co. produced in the late 1870s, including ‘Bird’ and ‘Bird and Dragon’, both designed by Morris in 1878. The fabrics were manufactured at the Morris & Co. premises at Queen Square, London, before subsequently being woven on hand-activated jacquard looms in the textile workshop Morris established at Merton Abbey.

Details

Date: 13.5.1892
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K6
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Seller: Reeves & Turner
Credit notes: Transer from Walthamstow Reference Library, 1950

‘A Dream of John Ball and A King’s Lesson’ (originally called An Old Story Retold) were published in William Morris’s newspaper The Commonweal between 1886-1887. They first appeared in book form in an edition [WMG: K516] published by Reeves & Turner 1888, with an engraved frontispiece by Burne Jones, with a couplet below “When Adam delved and Eve span / Who then was the gentleman?” in upper and lower case lettering designed by Morris. A finished pen and ink drawing by Burne Jones with lettering below by Morris for this frontispiece is in the Gallery’s collection, see D75.

Burne Jones re-drew the illustration for the frontispiece to the Kelmscott Press edition of Morris’s work, and it was engraved on wood by W.H. Hooper. The lettering, this time in capitals only, was designed by Morris also the framing border. 300 copies were printed on paper at £1 10 and 11 copies on vellum at 10 guineas. This copy on paper was presented by Morris to his friend Aglaia Coronio (1834-1906); embroiderer, bookbinder, art collector and patron of the arts.

The whole design was used again on a leaflet printed at the Kelmscott Press in March 1894 for the Ancoats Brotherhood (see copy in the collection). The design was also printed under the title ‘Labour’ in the Daily Chronicle 11 February 1895.

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