William morris biography timeline booking

After you leave Merton High Street, the Wandle Trail takes you past the former site of the William Morris factory. This post has everything you need to know about the history of William Morris in Merton, including a map showing where the original factory once stood.

William Morris Factory Merton

Who Was William Morris

William Morris was born in Walthamstow in 1834 into a wealthy family, and took an interest in the arts from an early age.

He was best known as a textile designer, but was also a poet, craftsman and early socialist.

In 1853 Morris went to Oxford University to study Theology, with the intention of pursuing a career in the church. It was at Oxford where he met his lifelong friend Edward Burne-Jones (the painter and designer), his wife Jane Burden, and Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Both Morris and Burne-Jones had planned to become clergyman, but after after an architectural tour of the churches and cathedrals in northern France and