@N‑TITLE = <F129P14M>ç<F255P255D><|>Biography<|><F129P14M>ç<F255P255D>

@BIO PARA 1 = ILLIAM Morris was born on March 24, 1834 into a wealthy and respectable middle‑class family in what was then the pleasant country village of Walthamstow, England. His father, a successful stockbroker, died when the boy was fifteen, but was able to leave the family a substantial fortune as the result of an investment in a Devonshire copper mine. The inheritance provided a sizeable annuity for William when he came of age, and it was this trust fund that enabled him to pursue creative work relatively free of financial worries. In 1853, Morris went to Exeter College, Oxford to study theology, but soon abandoned his plan to become a High Anglican cleric in favor of a life dedicated to the arts. At the university, he came under the influence of the Romantic poetic tradition, of John Ruskin's medievalist critique of Victorian capitalism, and, through his friend Edward Burne‑Jones, of the Pre‑Raphaelite Brotherhood of painters (including especially Dante Gabriel Rossetti). On graduating from Oxford in 1856, Morris apprenticed himself to a leading figure in the Gothic Revival, the architect G.E. Street, though, finding the work routine, he left before completing his apprenticeship. He tried his hand at painting, participating in Burne‑Jones' com<%2>mission to create frescos for the walls of the debating hall at<%0> the new Oxford Union. In 1858, Morris began his long and successful career as a poet by publishing The Defence of Guenevere, based in part on Arthurian themes. This literary activity was to lead thirty‑four years later to an offer of the poet laureateship which Morris, however, refused on political grounds. In 1859, he married the Pre‑Raphaelite model, Jane Burden, with whom he had two daughters, Jenny (born 1861) and May (born 1862). The year after they were married, Morris moved with Jane into Red House, which had been built on commission in southeast London by his friend and future collaborator, Philip Webb. It was in an attempt to provide Red House with beautiful furnishings that Morris founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company in 1861, which became simply Morris & Company thirteen years later. The firm soon began to produce objects of decorative art for middle‑class and aristocratic homes as well as churches, cathedrals, and other public and private institutions. It was the principal instrument through which Morris revived such fine crafts as stained glass work, embroidery, ceramics, furniture‑making, carpet‑weaving, and wallpaper design, initiating the Arts and Crafts Movement that later spread to the United States. In 1877, Morris founded the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, nicknamed `Anti‑Scrape'. Its purpose was to oppose insensitive restoration of medieval structures, and it remained a central passion until the end of Morris' life. In 1890, he founded the Kelmscott Press, which revived the art of fine printing with the creation of three new typefaces, and the publication of fifty‑three exquisitely designed, decorated, and hand‑printed books, including the famous Kelmscott Chaucer.

Morris' involvement in politics began in 1876 with his participation in a campaign against the Tory prime minister Disraeli's plan to take Britain to war against Russia in alliance with the Ottoman Empire so as to maintain British control of the Suez Canal. Morris spoke at public meetings, and published an open letter To the Working Men of England which was militantly anti‑imperialist in content. His position on the `Eastern Question', however, was limited by his membership in the Liberal Party and admiration for Gladstone, who was using the campaign to re‑enter public life after an earlier political defeat. Still, the Eastern agitation gave Morris his first experience of political action. The <%2>experience was greatly deepened when, against the opposition<%0> of his wife and most of his friends, he joined the roughly two hundred‑member socialist Democratic Federation (led by H.M. Hyndman) in January, 1883. He was immediately elected to the executive committee of the organization in the capacity of Treasurer. When the executive split in two in December, 1884, Morris left with the majority who opposed Hyndman's autocratic style of leadership, and formed the Socialist League. He became editor and chief financial supporter of the League's newspaper, The Commonweal, in which many of his most famous works appeared, including The Pilgrims of Hope (1885), A Dream of John Ball (1886), and News from Nowhere (1890). In 1890, as the result of more factional fighting, he left the League to form the Hammersmith Socialist Society.

In September, 1885, Morris brought international attention to `The Cause' when he was arrested and brought before a magistrate on the charge of striking a policeman. The assault was alleged to have taken place in court during an uproar the previous summer when a socialist speaker had been sentenced to two month's hard labor for his role in unemployment agitation. Morris denied that the assault had taken place and was allowed to go free. Throughout his years as a socialist, Morris was a tireless public speaker, addressing on average three political meetings per week. He spoke to mainly working‑class audiences in almost every part of the country, urging the construction of a socialist society by revolutionary means. Morris died peacefully in his bed on the morning of October 3, 1896. At the time, an eminent doctor wrote: `I consider the case is this: the disease is simply being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men'.