In search of an earthly paradise

WILLIAM MORRIS championed such an extraordinarily diverse range of Arts and interests that making an exact classification of him is difficult to achieve. A poet, romance writer, critic, socialist reformer, scholar and, above all, a prolific designer, he was a man for whom the word polymath was coined.

Born in Walthamstow on March 24, 1834, he was the third child and eldest son of a highly successful city broker. The family enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, settling at the Woodford Hall estate in Essex. By all accounts, Morris was an indulged child, who is said to have enjoyed wearing a miniature copy of a medieval suit of armour when riding his Shetland pony in Epping Forest.

At the age of eight, his father took him to Canterbury Cathedral, an experience that he later described as feeling as if the gates of Heaven had opened for him. The memory of this first visit certainly seems to have remained in