Flower and crest frieze or border design iv

Details

Date: 17 February 1873
Dimensions: 6.3 x 10.7
Object Type: archival
Catalogue number: PhJ902xxxix
Recipient: Burden, Elizabeth (13.12.1841 - 22.08.1924)
Author: Welby, Victoria (1837 - 1912)
Credit notes: Given by Stephanie Godwin

This envelope was sent from Victoria Welby (1837– 1912), Head of the Royal School of Needlework to Bessie Burden, the letter it contained does not survive. Burden started working at the RSN in early 1873, but in February, a few days after receiving the letter in this envelope, she wrote to inform Welby that she would not continue working there on the same terms, she was also worried that the School were planning to exhibit embroidered figures stitched by her pupils with her name attached in an upcoming exhibition at the South Kensington Museum. The details of this exchange are detailed in ‘Elizabeth Burden and the Royal School of Needlework’ by Lynn Hulse in The Journal of the William Morris Society, Winter 2014.

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Eight volumes of William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise, printed by The Kelmscott Press and bound in white vellum. Taking the form of a compendium of different narratives, The Earthly Paradise is an epic poem structured as a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It tells the story of a group of Norsemen who have fled a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay here and each month the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ contains the tales from a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative Morris draws both upon Greek myths and Medieval Romance tales, including Icelandic Eddas and Saga.

Printed on medium quarto size paper in Golden type in red and black, woodcut title, borders and initials. Published by the Kelmscott Press, 1896-97. Bound in original limp vellum, with ties, uncut. Bookplate of Herbert S. Squance.

Details

Date: c.1899
Dimensions: 5.7 x 5.7
Object Type: drawing
Material: pen and ink on paper
Catalogue number: D181
Artist: New, Edmund Hort (1871 - 1931)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs J.W. Mackail (J.W. Mackail Collection)

“There is a timeless quality to this drawing by William Morris. In contrast with a lot of his work which is colourful and densely patterned, this is stark and simple. The bold black lines and simple cross hatching create a design that is both historic and contemporary. Integrating the text into a visual motif conveys Morris’s idea to a wider audience in a memorable and attractive way.”
Lucinda Purkis, WMG Young Producer

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.

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