William Morris was born at Elm House in Walthamstow, Essex, on the 24th of March 1834. He entered a world of wealth and evangelical Protestantism as the third surviving child of a financier named William Morris who worked for Sanderson & Co.
In April 1861 Morris founded a decorative arts company called Morris Marshall Faulkner & Co. with six other partners including Edward Burne-Jones Dante Gabriel Rossetti Philip Webb Ford Madox Brown Charles Faulkner and Peter Paul Marshall. Operating from premises at No. 6 Red Lion Square they referred to themselves as the Firm and adopted an ethos of affordability and anti-elitism.
In summer 1875 Morris took out a lease on the seven-acre former silk weaving factory known as the Merton Abbey Works next to the River Wandle on High Street at Merton Southwest London. After moving his workshops to the site premises were used for weaving dyeing and creating stained glass within three years employing one hundred craftsmen.
William Morris died of tuberculosis on the morning of the 3rd of October 1896 after returning to Kelmscott House where he had become a complete invalid. His funeral was held the 6th of October and his corpse was transported from Hammersmith Paddington rail station to be buried in the churchyard of St George's Church Kelmscott.
William Morris met Jane Burden in October 1857 and they were married in a low-key ceremony held at St Michael North Gate church Oxford on the 26th of April 1859. They honeymooned in Bruges Belgium before settling temporarily at 41 Great Ormond Street London.