Morris & Co.

With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–1940) the firm's medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for hand-craftsmanship and traditional textile arts had a profound influence on the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.

Although its most influential period was during the flourishing of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1880s and 1890s, Morris & Co. remained in operation in a limited fashion from World War I until its closure in 1940.

The firm's designs are still sold today under licences given to Sanderson & Sons, part of the Walker Greenbank wallpaper and fabrics business (which owns the "Morris & Co." brand,[1]) and to Liberty of London.

With great reluctance he gave up Red House, and in 1865 established himself under the same roof with his workshops, which by then had relocated to larger premises in Queen Square, Bloomsbury.

[4] On its non-ecclesiastical side, the product line was extended to include, besides painted windows and mural decoration, furniture, metal and glass wares, cloth and paper wall-hangings, embroideries, jewellery, woven and knotted carpets, silk damasks, and tapestries.

He spent much of his time at the Staffordshire dye works of Thomas Wardle, mastering the processes of that art and making experiments in the revival of old or discovery of new methods.

[10] Following this, two significant secular commissions helped to establish the firm's reputation in the late 1860s: a royal project at St. James's Palace and the "green dining room" at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert) of 1867.

The St. James's commission comprised decorative schemes for the Armoury and the Tapestry Room, and included panels of stylized floral patterns painted on ceilings, cornices, dadoes, windows, and doors.

Standen near East Grinstead, West Sussex, was designed between 1892 and 1894 by Philip Webb for a prosperous London solicitor, James Beale, his wife Margaret, and their family.

In 1895, Morris & Co made the Garden Tulip wallpapers for the private apartments of Nicholas II in the Imperial Winter Palace in Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

It was also the most extensive commission undertaken by the firm, and included a series of tapestries based on the story of the Holy Grail for the dining room, to which Morris devoted his energies, the rest of the work being executed under the direction of Dearle.