[2] However during the 1920s and 1930s, Oxford saw a dramatic size and population increase following large numbers of unemployed people from depressed areas of Britain seeking work in Morris's factories.

This time period was marked with frequent attempts of industrial action protesting against the low pay and poor working conditions in Morris's factories.

[3] William Morris was politically anti-union, anti-Semitic, and a key financier of Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism.

[2][9] Morris was also a subscriber to anti-Jewish publications, and his personal papers detailed his belief that the government of England was controlled by Jews.

Nine months later, after his employer refused him a pay increase, aged 16 he set up a business repairing bicycles in a shed at the back of his parents' house.

This business being a success he opened a shop at 48 High Street and began to assemble as well as repair bicycles, labelling his product with a gilt cycle wheel and The Morris.

[15] In 1912 he designed a car, the "bullnose" Morris, and, using bought-in components (including engines and axles from the USA), he began to build them at a disused military training college in Cowley, Oxford.

In February 1927, in competition against—amongst others—its creator, Herbert Austin, Morris paid £730,000 for the assets of the collapsed Wolseley Motors Limited which became his personal property.

Wolseley were at this stage in fairly advanced development of an overhead camshaft 8 hp car, which he launched as the first Morris Minor in 1928.

Within a year, with the factory still not built, the costs had increased to £4.15 million mainly due to constant changes in site layout and design.

That month Lord Beaverbrook was placed in charge of all aircraft production, Nuffield was sacked and the plant handed over to Vickers, Supermarine's parent company.

[24] Vickers had inherited such a confused construction programme that even by 1942 building work was still going on and the project's accounts were not finally signed off by the Treasury until March 1944.

[25] As early as 1942, cracks in the brickwork of the principal building were discovered by Vickers, due to differential expansion of the various types of bricks used in the different stages of construction.

Possibly as a result of this débâcle, in 1941 Nuffield invited Mrs Dorothée Martin to join his organisation to advise him on his war work.

Although succeeded as chairman by Leonard Lord,[28] as honorary president he attended his office regularly and continued to advise his colleagues.

In 1937 he gave £50,000 to fund the expansion of the Sea Cadet Corps, donated £60,000 to the University of Birmingham for the Nuffield building, to house a cyclotron,[36] In December 1938 he offered to give an iron lung (see Both respirator) made in his factory to any hospital in Britain and the Empire that requested one; over 1,700 were distributed.

[44] Historians have described William Morris as politically anti-union and anti-Semitic, often citing the fact that he was a key financer of Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism.

[46] Historian of British fascism Dave Renton describes William Morris as "the most important example" of a wealthy supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement.

[2] Renton also describes Morris as being "fiercely anti-Semitic" in his private life, citing that for many years he was a subscriber to Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland's anti-Jewish newspaper The Patriot.

[2] According to Renton, William Morris's personal papers contain several anti-Semitic and pro-fascist comments, including one example which says: 'it is a well-known fact that every government in my England is Jew controlled regardless of the Party in power.