The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his circle

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his Circle"

You're Dead to Me is a BBC Radio 4 comedy podcast that delves into historical topics with a humorous twist. In the episode titled "The Arts and Crafts Movement: William Morris and his Circle," host Greg Jenner explores the intricacies of the late 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement alongside his guests, Dr. Isabella Rosner, an art historian, and comedian Carriad Lloyd. This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode.

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1. Introduction to the Arts and Crafts Movement

Greg Jenner opens the episode by introducing the Arts and Crafts movement, highlighting its enduring influence on modern design and its roots in Victorian Britain. He emphasizes William Morris’s iconic floral designs, which remain popular today on various products like curtains, wallpaper, and even football kits. Jenner poses critical questions about the movement's true essence beyond its visual appeal, setting the stage for an in-depth exploration.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Jenner (04:20): "What was Arts and Crafts really about? Why did traditional manufacturing methods have a resurgence in Victorian Britain? And what is a strawberry thief? Let's Find out."

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2. Historical Context: Industrial Revolution and Victorian Britain

Dr. Isabella Rosner provides an overview of the Arts and Crafts movement, situating it within the broader context of the Industrial Revolution. She explains how the rapid industrialization of Victorian Britain led to poor living and working conditions, particularly in urban areas. This backdrop fueled a reaction among artists who sought to return to craftsmanship and aesthetic unity in everyday objects.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (07:04): "He [William Morris] promotes craftsmanship and aesthetic unity between all sorts of objects in the home."
• Dr. Isabella Rosner (08:57): "By the 1850s, the average life expectancy for mechanics, laborers, and their families in Manchester was 17. Compare that to 38 years old in rural Rutland."

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3. Key Figures: William Morris, John Ruskin, Augustus Pugin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The discussion delves into the prominent figures of the movement:

• William Morris: Central to the movement, Morris was a polymath involved in design, poetry, and socialism. His desire to blend art with everyday life drove much of the movement’s ethos.

  Quote:

  • Greg Jenner (17:39): "He also has quite high standards when it comes to other people. There's a quote that he says, if a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving a tapestry, he'd better shut up."

• John Ruskin: An influential critic and philosopher, Ruskin inspired the movement with his belief that society's moral health was tied to its production methods. His work "The Stones of Venice" served as a manifesto for the Arts and Crafts ideals.

  Quote:

  • Dr. Isabella Rosner (12:17): "He thought that society would be morally better, which is a bold move already."

• Augustus Pugin: Renowned for designing the interiors of the Palace of Westminster, Pugin was another key figure whose work embodied the Gothic Revival influence on the movement.

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A leading Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet, Rossetti collaborated closely with Morris, contributing to both artistic and personal circles.

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4. The Establishment and Activities of Morris & Co.

William Morris, along with his colleagues, established Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861, later simplifying it to Morris & Co. by 1875. The company became a hub for designing a wide range of products, from stained glass and furniture to textiles and metalwork. They also engaged in significant projects like the decorative murals for the Oxford Union debating chamber, albeit with some mishaps.

Notable Quote:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (26:33): "William Morris was a great businessman. So they were in it for 14 years and then there was a restructuring and the other guys left and then it was William Morris as just him."

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5. The Social and Economic Impact

The movement sought to make art accessible to the masses by promoting high-quality handcrafted goods. Morris & Co. not only produced aesthetically pleasing items but also took social responsibility by hiring apprentices from the Industrial Home for Destitute Boys, offering them skills and opportunities in craftsmanship.

Notable Quote:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (28:20): "They were really mindful about their employees. This was part of their effort to make this art as accessible as possible and to get everybody involved."

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6. The Role of Women in the Movement

While the movement was predominantly led by middle-class men, women played crucial roles, especially in embroidery and textile arts. Families involved in Morris & Co., such as Morris's wife Jane and daughters May and Jenny, actively contributed to the creative processes. Additionally, pioneers like Mary Lowndes and Mae Morris worked towards greater inclusion and recognition of women in the arts.

Notable Quote:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (46:10): "There was the stained glass designer Mary Lowndes. There was the metal worker Charlotte Newman, painter and enameler Edith B. Dawson. And Mae Morris... she was a textile historian and a designer."

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7. The Legacy of the Arts and Crafts Movement

The movement's influence extended beyond Britain, impacting design philosophies in the United States, Japan, and various European countries. Although it officially ended with World War I, its principles of craftsmanship and aesthetic integrity continue to resonate in contemporary design and popular culture.

Notable Quote:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (58:01): "While the Arts and crafts movement technically ends at World War I, here in Britain, it does have ripples in other places... and we are still in a world where we are kind of constantly seeing arts and crafts images."

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8. Notable Artworks: "Strawberry Thief"

In the "Nuance Window" segment, Dr. Rosner highlights William Morris's "Strawberry Thief," a widely recognized and commercially successful textile design. Originally intended for high-end furnishings, the pattern features thrushes amidst vibrant flora and has transcended its original purpose to become a ubiquitous design element in modern products.

Notable Quote:

• Dr. Isabella Rosner (49:25): "With Strawberry Thief, Morris captures the thrushes that he caught stealing fruit in his garden at Kelmscott Manor... Clearly the commercial success of Strawberry thief lives on 140ish years after the textile was produced."

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9. Quiz Section Highlights

The episode features a lively quiz segment where Carriad Lloyd answers ten questions about the Arts and Crafts movement, demonstrating her acquired knowledge and reinforcing key points discussed.

Notable Interaction:

• Greg Jenner (53:34): "Question one. Who coined the term arts and crafts movement?"
• Carriad Lloyd (53:40): "Cobden Sanderson."

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10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes by reflecting on the movement's enduring legacy and its relevance in today's design landscape. Despite its historical confines, the Arts and Crafts movement's emphasis on craftsmanship and accessibility continues to influence modern aesthetics and production methods.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Jenner (49:36): "It's back in fashion. Maybe it never left."

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Key Takeaways:

• The Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction against the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, emphasizing craftsmanship and aesthetic unity.
• William Morris was the central figure, whose multifaceted contributions shaped the movement's direction.
• Although the movement aimed for social reform and accessibility, it largely remained within the middle class, with limited impact on broader societal changes.
• Women's roles, though significant in certain areas, were constrained by the gender norms of the time.
• The movement's legacy persists in contemporary design, demonstrating the lasting appeal of its principles.

Final Quote:

• Greg Jenner (58:16): "It's the sort of memeification of the craft. But to be fair to Morris, it is a banging pattern."

---

This episode offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of the Arts and Crafts movement, blending historical analysis with comedic insights to make the subject accessible and entertaining for all listeners.

Transcript

[Greg Jenner]

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[Carriad Lloyd]

BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts.

[Greg Jenner]

You're about to listen to youo're Dead to Me Episodes will be released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you are in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our William Morris tote bags and heading back to the 19th century to learn all about the Arts and Crafts movement. And to help us spin this story, we have two practitioners of very different arts. In History Corner, she's curator of the Royal School of Needlework and a research consultant at Whitney Antiques. She's an art historian of the material culture of the 17th to 19th centuries with a particular focus on needlework. You might have listened to her podcast. So what? It's a pun. It's Dr. Isabella Rosner. Welcome, Isabella.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

[Greg Jenner]

We're delighted to have you here. And in Comedy Corner she is a comedian, actor, improviser, writer and podcaster. You may know her from her podcast Griefcast, an award winning show, its spin off book, you Are Not Alone, her many TV appearances, her Weirdos book club podcast with lovely Sarah Pascoe, or her new children's book, the Christmas Wishtastrophe. And you'll definitely remember her from our episodes about Agropina, the younger Georgian courtship. It's the wonderful Carriad Lloyd. Welcome back, Carriad.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Hello. I wanted to think of a sewing pun but I couldn't. So nice to meet you.

[Greg Jenner]

You're an expert in the Regency period. That's your.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I'm pretty good on. Yeah. Georgian stuff.

[Greg Jenner]

No, you're very good. You're very good. But today we're in the Victorian era.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

And even into the early 20th century. So what do you know of the Arts and Crafts movement?

[Carriad Lloyd]

I Know the Arts and Crafts movement. I love the Arts and Crafts movement. I have been to an exhibition of the Arts and Crafts movement when I was in Glasgow. I doubt my memories because I have two small children. So I'm always like, did it happen or was it a fever dream?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Great fever dream. Great fever dream.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Before they had the fire at the Glasgow Art, I did a tour and they had an amazing exhibition there. And it was incredible. Like, amazing chairs and tables and, like, proper, like, the good stuff and just the building itself.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Carriad Lloyd]

So I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of the moment. Although I did. I was saying to Isabella earlier, I had a moment on the way here when I was like, oh, yeah, it's William Morris. And then I thought, is it. Have I made that up? Is it William Morris or is he, like, Elizabethan? I Googled it and confirmed it, confirmed it was Elizabeth. Elizabeth Morris. William Morris.

[Greg Jenner]

He'd love to be Elizabethan.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, he would.

[Greg Jenner]

Loved it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

He would love it. And we should quickly. I know it's audio, but Isabella is wearing a very cool William Morris jacket.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

I wore this, and I was like, maybe it's gonna be him giving me his blessing. And he'll be like, you're doing great. But I'm a little bit scared that he will actually be violently turning in his grave. And I'm gonna be talking about him while wearing this.

[Carriad Lloyd]

No. Because it's both beautiful and useful. So he'll be happy.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Such a strong start.

[Greg Jenner]

So what do you know? This where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I imagine most people will have heard of the big dog of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris. His floral designs are still printed on curtains, wallpaper, notebooks, pencil cases, even on football kits. What's more, modern homeware brands like Cath Kidston owe a huge amount to the Arts and Crafts movement. And we see the design legacy in TV shows like Grand Designs and Queer Eye. But the wider history of the movement is perhaps more hidden beyond the cutesy curtains. What was Arts and Crafts really about? Why did traditional manufacturing methods have a resurgence in Victorian Britain? And what is a strawberry thief? Let's Find out. Right, Dr. Isabella, where do we start our story?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

I think we should start with an overview. I hope that's okay. Just set the scene. So the Arts and Crafts movement is an art movement, as you could guess, that begins sometime in the late 19th century. Nobody can agree on the exact same start date. Some people put it at 1861, which is when William Moore starts getting on the scene. Other people say it doesn't really start until the 1870s or 1880, and it lasts until about the beginning of World War I. The movement is a style of art. It's primarily domestic furnishings and it promotes craftsmanship and aesthetic unity between all sorts of objects in the home. And those would range from textiles to furniture to ceramics to metalwork and everything in between. It has some overlap with other contemporary art movements at the same time, or just a little bit previously. And those include the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Aesthetic Movement, and even Art Nouveau. The name itself comes from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. That's a very long name for a society, I think, but okay, not for Victorians. They loved wordiness, didn't they? So that Exhibition Society was founded in 1887 to exhibit decorative arts alongside fine arts. And it had exhibitions in London from 1888 to 1890. And there was one guy in it in particular, Thomas James Cobden Sanderson. Speaking of long Victorian names, who first coined the term in 1887? William Morris is considered the head honcho. He's the daddy, he's the grand Pumbaa in the situation. It's his ideas and view of the world that inspires so much of the movement.

[Greg Jenner]

What is a movement? Are there rules? Is there a manifesto? Do you have to have like a.

[Carriad Lloyd]

How do you decide who's in and who's out?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It seems like just a vibe. And it's kind of a term that we use to encapsulate people bound together by an ethos rather than a specific crew. They were all people with similar ideals at a similar time.

[Greg Jenner]

We're not sure quite when it starts then. You said 1860, you went into 1870s, but this is 1887, that it gets its name. So that's not very good branding. If you've been going for 27 years, we should really call this something. There is a quote by Morris in an 1877 lecture. Do you want to read the quote for us?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. He says, and he's giving this lecture in December of 1877 to the trades Guild of Learning. And I think he summarizes one of.

[Carriad Lloyd]

My shout out to the Trades Guild of Learning.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

The best trades guilds, my favorite trades guild, also trades guild, like, so confusing to say, but that's fine. He summarizes his feelings about kind of everything really well. When he says, I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few or freedom for a few. He's really about art and wellness for everybody, as many people as possible. He's got great vibes.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I think, generally, William Moore's.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

William Moore's fan club over here. He and the other arts and crafts people are really invested in handicraft and utilizing really learned skills to create beautiful, pleasant, pleasing, comfortable, useful objects.

[Carriad Lloyd]

So is it kind of reaction to industrialization?

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, have you read the script?

[Carriad Lloyd]

No, I was just thinking like that. Is that what it's got? Like, you know, you've lost. You know, you have. Oh, God, my brain. What's it called? Encroachment. What's the thing they do when they get all the land of everything? Enclosure. So you have enclosure.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And then, like, you get industrialization, and you've lost all these skills, right? These amazing weaving skills and sewing skills. So is William Morris like, Harken? Back to good times. Oh, boy.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

You should have been in the arts and crafts. I would have loved it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I love the clothes. I love them. I love the vibe.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's all vibes. It's all vibes for me. But yeah, exactly like Victorian London, Victorian Britain saw a huge amount of change when it came to industrialization in good and bad ways. So in terms of the population, by 1851, the census tells us that more people live in cities than in the countryside. That's a big change. You have huge numbers of people flocking to industrial city centers. But the conditions are bad. Oftentimes, people are living in slum conditions, in slum housing with overcrowding and a lack of sanitation, and generally just bad living situations, lots of disease. And industrialization is good for some people, for a lot of people, in that, it means that there are more affordable items available to more people. But the actual manufacture is gnarly. The work is dangerous. The work hours are crazy long, the pay was abysmal, diseases everywhere. And it's usually children who are most affected by this in the Victorian period. And I have a. I was gonna say a fun fact. It's the opposite of a fun fact. I have an un. Fun fact.

[Carriad Lloyd]

A grim fact.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

A grim fact for you. So by the 1850s, the average life expectancy for mechanics, laborers, and their families in Manchester was 17. Compare that to 38 years old in rural Rutland. So nobody is thriving. Nobody's thriving. 38 is also a terrible age to die at. But an average age of 17 to pass away at is so dark.

[Carriad Lloyd]

A big leap, isn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

But that's also a mean average, which means mostly its children.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

D. So, you know, that's.

[Greg Jenner]

We have Then a movement that comes along that's reacting to the trauma of the Industrial revolution, you know, it is a trauma, right?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

These artists are responding in a way that feels like they're looking for escapism and they go hunting for escapism in the past. Carriage where, you know, what bygone age would you daydream about? Or do you daydream about?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, well, obviously I do. I heavily daydream about the Regency period being.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, you live there.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I live there. Doing a show called Ostentatious Improvised Jane Austen and yeah, I wrote a kids book set there as well. Big fan of Elizabethan times as well. I like. I'd go there happily. I'd like to go and see a play at the Globe. That's what I'd like to see. That would be good. Yeah, yeah. If we can time travel, I'll go anywhere.

[Greg Jenner]

I'll go.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Last week they've been interesting.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, the artists that we're talking about here, they're interested in Elizabethan, but it's the medieval world that they're particularly drawn to.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Obsessed.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Nice hats.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Hats, Good hats.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Pointy hats, nice hose. Good old pointy shoes as well.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure. But it's a romantic medieval, you know, I'm a medievalist by training and medieval.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

World pressure is on.

[Greg Jenner]

The medieval world was very violent and dark and scary. And of course there was art and beauty in philosophy. But you know, this is not a time necessarily of great joy and pleasantness. But the, the arts and crafts movement, they. They see it as a romantic age.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes, they really romanticize it and idealize it. And they're interested in the medieval world because they perceive it as having a better run society and a better run system for making goods. So they are kind of idealizing and dreaming about this system where objects were produced in small scale workshops rather than these large anonymous br. Brutal factories.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And they're looking for artisan sourdough bread.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

They literally are the cottage core folks of the late Victorian days.

[Carriad Lloyd]

They would be happy in East London now.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

They are so obsessed with this medieval world. But they aren't alone in that. There are loads of people in the 19th century, especially artists, who are involved in various art movements, who are really looking to the medieval period as this perfect moment in society. They're not right, but they are looking at it through rose colored glasses and they're like, wow, those guys, they had it so correct. But it wasn't surprising that they were interested in that because that was the artistic world. They were kind of becoming adults in all of these Arts and crafts people. There was the Gothic revival in the 19th century, especially in architecture, and it meant that kind of wherever you looked, there were Gothic style buildings. And we can see that influence all over the place, not just in art, but there was also this increased influence in Romantic poetry and more study of folklore. And Walter Scott was writing these historical romances and Alfred Lord Tennyson was writing Arthurian literature. And there is such a drive to look to this dreamed up past.

[Greg Jenner]

And talking of great men of the Victorian era, we should probably mention Ruskin. Do you know Ruskin?

[Carriad Lloyd]

I've heard of William Ruskin. No, you're just.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's all William.

[Greg Jenner]

Try another man's name from the period.

[Carriad Lloyd]

George Ruskin.

[Greg Jenner]

John Ruskin. Well done. There you go. You get there in the end. I mean, he's an extraordinary figure in the 19th century. He's slightly debated these days. Everything amongst everything else, absolutely everything. Architect, critic, painter, writer, philosopher, poet.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, multi hyphenate.

[Greg Jenner]

He's what a Victorian, the Victorians would call him. A great man, capital G, capital M. He did everything. He's a polymass and he. He's kind of an inspiration for the Arts and Crafts movement. Definitely intellectual, kind of figurehead.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. So he is a leading figure in that Gothic revival movement. And he thought that society would be morally better, which is a bold move already, if art, design and industry were reimagined along pre industrial lines. He was like, let's just get rid of mechanization. We'd actually all be emotionally and morally better people. And he saw that the best, the most good period was the medieval period. And he saw it in Gothic architecture. And he liked the medieval stuff for the same reason that the Arts and Crafts people liked the medieval stuff. It was him viewing this period as a time when craftsmen were celebrated and honored and they lived in a society that was unaffected by corruption and immorality. Which is so bold. But.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, tell Martin Luther, come on.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

But he, he went a step kind of further where he basically equated a nation's social health to the way it made its goods. So he was very, very interested in how production happened. And he wrote this trilogy of books between 1851 and 1853 called the Stones of Venice. And that middle volume was called the Nature of the Gothic. And that became an Arts and Crafts manifesto. And he said for art and design to be successful and morally uplifting, an artist needed to be involved in every single step, the artistic process.

[Carriad Lloyd]

He's like a nightmare director.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah.

[Carriad Lloyd]

People, people, directors now who are Like, I'm in charge of casting, I'm in charge of set. And everyone's being like, it's easy if you give like somebody else some delegation here.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So there was another leading figure of the Gothic Revival movement named Augustus Pugin.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, Puget. The Houses of Parliament.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Indeed.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Very good.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

And Pugin dies. And then Ruskin starts writing like his ideas were the worst. I hate this guy. Like, they were in the same movement, but Ruskin was like, this guy's trash. Yeah, he had some spicy opinions and he was not afraid to let you know them.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Putin did the inside right of the Houses of Pont. Did the patterns.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. So Augustus Pugin did do the interiors of the palace of Westminster.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yes, he did the palace of Westminster and he did all the patterns and it's all like repeating portcullis patterns everywhere. And apparently he would close his eyes and it's all he could see. And so he went mad.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

What a hellscape.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so we have some of our intellectual figures. Let's move on to William Morris, who we've already, we've name checked him already.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Big William.

[Greg Jenner]

Big. Big William.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Big William Energy.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

I've called him Daddy. Morris feels worse.

[Greg Jenner]

It feels worse and feels slightly sordid. I don't know, I feel like I'm on it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Big William, let's go with it.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Does that sound better? I guess.

[Greg Jenner]

I think many people would recognize a William Morris prince. Yeah, I don't think they're going to recognize a photo of him. No, he's not. Got one of those distinctive Victorian faces. Who was William Morris? You know, where was he educated? How did he get start?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Okay, so he was basically, as we've already discussed, the guy when it comes to the Arts and crafts movement. And he's born in 1834 in Walthamstow to a wealthy middle class family. His dad is a broker in the city of London. His mom comes from a bourgeois family in Worcester. He's comfortably fancy. And his childhood was punctuated by his father's death. So not all great, but other than that, some pretty good times. He read a lot, lot and had a nice time. He would wander through the woods at his family's house called Woodford hall, which was in Essex. And he also spent time in the nearby woods of Epping Forest. And my favorite fact is that he had a miniature suit of armor, medieval suit of armor made for him. And he used to wander through Epping Forest on his pony in the suit of armor. Love that for him. My personal dream would love that for me. And his childhood home in Walthamstow is now the William Wars Gallery.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yes. Beautiful, beautiful.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Very beautiful. Great exhibitions as well.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Very good place to visit.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, so good.

[Greg Jenner]

And as a personality, I mean, he's a prodigious brain. He's another classic polymath.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes. He had so much going on. I mean, he was an architect, a designer, a practitioner of several self taught crafts. He taught himself how to paint, how to make furniture, how to make tapestries. He was also a really acclaimed and talented writer, a poet, a translator. He was actually offered a largely honorary but still very impressive professorship of poetry at Oxford, but he turned it down.

[Carriad Lloyd]

So we voted. Been there. We've all been there. You just got too much to do. I know, I understand.

[Greg Jenner]

Too busy.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

He was such a machine. He was just constantly giving lectures and constantly writing about his beliefs. He was a socialist eventually kind of later in his life. And it meant that by the end of his life in 1896, he saw all of his ideas kind of grow, flourish and become this arts and crafts movement throughout Britain. He wasn't without anger. He once broke down a door with his foot. But he. I don't want to paint a too positive or too negative a picture of him. Everybody's a complicated person. But he seems like he had. Speaking of vibes, great vibes.

[Greg Jenner]

He also has quite high standards when it comes to other people. There's a quote that he says, if a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving a tapestry, he'd better shut up. He'll never do any good at all, I feel. I mean, that's two skills I can't do. So that is also.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

You would never be his friend.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Unfortunately, that is how all women should test for a boyfriend, for a partner. If they can't epic poem and weave at the same time. Red flag.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, Carrie, Ed, what are the two things that the modern gentle person should be able to do simultaneously?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Be able to pay their rent and text someone back on time. I think we're back to the basics.

[Greg Jenner]

Those sound very difficult. Only one of those at a time. Come on.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Well, for a lot of guys that seems quite hard.

[Greg Jenner]

So he's setting high standards for others, but he's setting them for himself too. William Morris is an interesting fella. And much like the Bloomsbury group that we spoke about in our hundredth episode, the arts and crafts movement again is a bunch of university pal going, hey, I'm a bit posh and fancy like.

[Carriad Lloyd]

You and we are all friends and let's go.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, it's it's pretty wholesome because he just kind of lucked into being friends with all these people, kind of. So in 1852, he goes to Oxford. He's at Exeter College, and he really soon meets Edward Burne Jones, who is another. Ends up. You've heard of this guy, right? Big Arts and Crafts figure as well. They're in the same college in the same year. They live together, and they actually both are training to be priests, but by the end of their education, they're like, nah, I'm leaving the Church. Like, I'm going to be an artist.

[Greg Jenner]

And he doesn't he do architecture as well?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

He, after his degree, trains with an architecture firm. He's a trainee architect after university, and between his time at Oxford and his time as a trainee architect, he is kind of surrounded by all these people who share his ideals and his ethos. And so Edward Burne Jones is there, and then he marries Georgiana MacDonald. Edward does. And then when they get married, Georgiana Burne Jones joins the social circle. There's also the architect Philip Webb. There's also the Pre Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Have you heard of him? Is that a name that people know?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, yeah, he's one of the famous.

[Greg Jenner]

He's one of the hot, sexy men of the 19th century.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Oh, I love. I don't know if his impact is as felt in the us so I'm still like, oh, interesting. What's the vibe?

[Carriad Lloyd]

He's definitely up there as a boy.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

A boy Rossetti. Okay. Perf would love that. So I don't even need to go into him. Burn Chase.

[Carriad Lloyd]

But I would like to.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Hey, how do I carry on after that? No, it's. Burne Jones was his apprentice. And so then Rossetti, Burne Jones and Morris become like a tight trio having a great time. Then there's also the embroidery artist and model, Jane Burden. Jane Burden is the daughter of a stableman, and she is, quote, unquote, discovered at the theater in Oxford by Rossetti and Burne Jones. And she starts modeling for Ozetti, and then she starts modeling for Morris, and they actually end up getting married. They marry in 1859. Unfortunately for William Morris, in this situation, eight years after Jane and Morris get married and have two daughters, and after Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth Siddal, unfortunately passes away very tragically, they start having an affair. And Morris and Jane, Morris and Rossetti all live together at Kelmscott Manor, which is Morris's family home from 1871 to 1896.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, I mean, you Said, unfortunately. But there's a sort of argument here that William Morris is like, yeah, I mean, what are you gonna do.

[Carriad Lloyd]

From relationship. What's happening with William?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

There is a lot of discourse around it. And it seems like he wasn't clearly opposed. It was in his house. But I think that he knew that Jane and Dante, they had a lot of chemistry. And he was like, ugh, how can I stand in the way of. Of this thing? Because it's not known if Jane, like.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It'S just what you can imagine is like, Maurice. Yeah, look. Okay. The photo's nice. He looks like a cool vibe. But we know Rossetti is fit. So like, what we're knowing is like, he's like, oh, my really fit friend who's also really talented is like living in the house. I'm probably not gonna win this battle. Essentially.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. It seems a little bit like he's just shrugging and being like, fine.

[Carriad Lloyd]

So Jane is making good and useful times with Rossetti.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes. Well, also embroidering. She really. And modeling. She's doing it all with her very beautiful hair. She's absolutely killing it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Love that for her.

[Greg Jenner]

So Dante Gabriel Rossetti was. Was in the. The family bed. And also Morris also invited in Edward Burne Jones and his wife Georgina to come and move in with them as well.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I mean, is Morris.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's a party.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Like, what is he starting a cult like this sounds.

[Greg Jenner]

I'd go commune. Commune is where I'd go.

[Carriad Lloyd]

But you know, he very quickly become a cult.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

He perhaps was just so extroverted. Like, I really feel this. If just live with four of my friends all the time. I would love that. Maybe he was just like me.

[Greg Jenner]

How Cher, it's. It's very early in your career kind of vibes.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It's fine. Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

He was a full on adult man by this point.

[Carriad Lloyd]

He was a rich, successful, educated adult man who was like, hey, all my buddies come around with all your wives. I just think maybe he was more aware. I'm just saying it feels like it. It feels like it wasn't an uninformed decision.

[Greg Jenner]

No. So, well, Edward Burne Jones and Georgiana, they actually turned the invitation down. And Morris was bondage.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, God. Williams asked us to live with him.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, God.

[Carriad Lloyd]

That's because Jane sleeping with Dante, Georgiana's like, I'm not going there. We've got a nice house. Why do we have to go and move with them? It's gonna be so awkward at parties. We have to say no. I have to say no. I don't want to sleep with Dante.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe April's like, no, we're not. We're not moving. We're not. No, maybe.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, maybe. Donna was like, yes, please.

[Greg Jenner]

I'd love to move in with you.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Where do I put my stuff in Dante's room?

[Greg Jenner]

Winnie. Morris wrote, when he got the knockback, he just wrote, I cried. But I've got over it now, which is relatable.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

King.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Quite sweet.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's easy about most things, I feel.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so we've got these talented friends who are collaborating artistically. Collaborating romantically, occasionally, not always successfully artistically. There's a famous mural. They're invited into Oxford's famous debating chamber, and they're asked to do a mural, and they're gonna do an Arthurian mural. Of course they are, but they don't necessarily check the kind of textbook on how to do a mural.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. So in 1857, I was gonna say our boy. Is he our boy? He's one of our boys. John Ruskin, one of our boys, commissions our other boys, Rossetti, and then, therefore, William Morris and Edward Burne Jones.

[Greg Jenner]

So many boys in this.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, Boys on boys. So basically, Ruskin commissions Rossetti to do a mural. Rossetti's like, come on through. Morris and Burne Jones, join me. And then they're also joined by a variety of other arts and crafts painters to do the murals of Arthurian legend. Jane Burden is the model. My favorite is that yesterday I was, like, looking up the Wikipedia article for this because I was curious about what they said. And they called the artistic process, quote, notoriously chaotic because we forget that for the most part, not Rossetti, but these other folks were about 23 years old and just kind of having a nice time. They're really talented painters, but they.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Classic commune vibes. You know, you get all your mates round, and then you. No one's paid the gas bill and, like, no one knows whether, like, how to operate the Internet properly.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So they're painting, and Morris ends up actually painting his mural really quickly. And they don't realize that you actually have to plaster a wall or at least create enough of an underpainting to paint on top of. So they're painting, and then the bare bricks are visible basically immediately. And it got restored in 1986. Oh, how sad when you try so hard and you don't succeed.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, they also. I mean, William and Jane, they build their family home in Bexley Heath in Kent. It's called Red House. Have you ever been, Carrie?

[Carriad Lloyd]

No, I haven't been to this one.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, it's a nice one. It's built in 1860 and Philip Webb, their old friend, designs it. Yes, but they get all the. They get the gang in.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Oh, it's so cute again, very wholesome, light, commune vibes. All the friends and fam are there and they are collaborating to decorate and furnish it. So there are pre Raphaelite style wall paintings and stained glass and it's Rossetti who's painting as well as Elizabeth Siddle, his wife. Edward Byrd Jones, always there as well. They're all contributing to these mural paintings and the furniture, decoration. And Philip Webb, hilariously, actually designs a Gothic cart to collect guests from the train station to bring to the house. I would like it for myself.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

But they weren't there for that long. So they move in in 1860 and by 1865 they move back to central London and they sell it by 1866.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

But like, the commune vibes of it all get more extreme. In 1861, one of the friends, this painter named Ford Maddox Brown, suggests that. Yeah, you've heard of him, right? All these big names. He suggests that he. William Morris, Burne Jones Webb, Rossetti and some other folks, that they establish a design firm and they do, and it's called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. And then.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Doesn't roll off the tongue.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It does not. But then by 1875, it's Morris & Co. And that's what we still have today. But what I love is that they simply called it the Firm.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, the firm.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

The boys are in the firm. You know, my guys in the firm.

[Greg Jenner]

Which I think is what people refer to as the Royal Family as well.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, normally when artists get together to form companies, you know, the Beatles or the Apple Cut, like, it doesn't always work out like, with artists normally. That's the point. They're really good at all the artistic, creative stuff. And then someone's like, have you paid the tax bill? And they go, what's that? So, like. But it survived and they. It ran as a business. Is that right?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, they were all pretty good businessmen. William Morris was a great businessman. So they were in it for 14 years and then there was a restructuring and the other guys left and then it was William Morris as just him.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

That's when it became Morrison Co. But yeah, they were kind of killing it.

[Greg Jenner]

They're doing all sorts of things. They're not just putting up a mural, they're not just hanging some lovely curtains, they're doing stained glass windows.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

They're doing everything. And it's actually really successful and convenient for them that this is a time, it's the 1860s, when the Gothic revival has meant that there are churches popping up all over the place. So there are new churches and old churches that are being restored, and they are the people who are making all the stained glass for that. And they're actually so successful, they're so skilled that at the 1862 International Exhibition, they were accused of touching up original medieval artwork. It was their artwork. They're just really good at what they do. I know, but then by the late 1860s, the interest in church work, the amount of churches that were being built, had shrunk. So things were kind of moving towards secular commissions. But they were doing everything from furniture to embroideries. Jewelry, carpets, woven textiles, tapestries, metal and glassware and wall hangings. Like, if you wanted it, you could get it from them.

[Carriad Lloyd]

They were the IKEA of their day. Except it was four guys who were also socialists.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes. And they had great. And the meatballs are delicious.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, maybe they also made great meatballs. I don't know.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

You know, they were really mindful about their employees. This was part of their effort to make this art as accessible as possible and to get everybody involved. So they actually started hiring and training as apprentices, boys from the Industrial Home for Destitute Boys on Euston Road in central London. Yeah, it's basically to give them skills and opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise. And I think that is absolutely rad. But it wasn't just boys. I mean, women were involved in Morrison Co. From the very beginning. So decorative tiles were being painted by Lucy and Kate Faulkner, who were sisters of Charles Faulkner, who was one of the other members of the firm. And then Georgiana Burne Jones, she was involved in the tiles as well. And like every woman in Morris's family was involved in the embroidery. So his wife Jane, embroidering. His sister in law, Elizabeth or Bessie Burden, embroidering. His two daughters, May and Jenny, embroidering. It was. It was a whole family affair. They were involved.

[Carriad Lloyd]

His daughter's like, dad, I was thinking about accountancy. No, get your needles, your arts and crafts. Okay, sorry.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Luckily for him, one of them loved it. Yeah, one of them.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Well, I don't know as much about Jenny because she had epilepsy. So she was just, you know, she was ill a lot of the time, but Mae Morris, man, I'm gonna spill some facts later. And she was. She was a keen embroidery bean.

[Greg Jenner]

Amazing. So the company flourishes. And as you said, Carrie, we're used to artists being useless at the basic.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Falling apart and some money men having to come in and be like, we'll sort it out, you idiots.

[Greg Jenner]

No, this. This goes really well. They expand into bigger premises in near Wimbledon. Is that about.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, Merton Abbey. Oh, yeah, that's in 1881.

[Greg Jenner]

And so they're sort of pivoting to interior design. They did a dining room at the V and A. Or what is now the V and A.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes, yes. So they did the Green dining room. This was the first museum cafe in the world.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Is that the one that's still there now?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, which is so beautiful.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. And it has all of these, like, images of nature and plants and fruits in the turning year. And it evokes this idea of, you know, old green England. And that's exciting not only because we still have it today, but also because it shows that they were making efforts to be part of this movement of making art accessible to all.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, I'm gonna be an agent provocateur here, Isabella, because as a historian, I'm gonna have to say one of the reasons the company flourishes is because of the Industrial Revolution. Right?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, good point.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, come on. I mean, they're rejecting it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

They put that in your tapestry and weave it.

[Greg Jenner]

I know I'm being annoying, but we have to be true.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Right.

[Greg Jenner]

The Industrial Revolution creates a middle class.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It creates wealth that you can have a house that you want a tapestry for.

[Greg Jenner]

Right, yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

They're reacting against it and they're also benefiting from it, because by the 1860s and 70s, there is a lot more wealth than there was before. So there's an increase in white collar jobs, there's improvements in state education. That's what we were just talking about with those destitute boys. By one estimate, the average income per head of household doubles between 1850 and 1900. And the middle class triples in size. So, yeah, more people with more money meant that there was more interest in buying more objects. How many times can I say the word more in a sentence? But that is the vibe. It's more. It's more is more.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Because medieval times, I know, they're like, oh, man, do you remember the mid? They were so great. Like, the only people in the tapestries are a church. Everyone else is living in a hovel. And it's like, art's accessible for all. They'd be like, we're peasants. We really don't need this lovely chair. Like, we just need to to sit on. Now we're going to sleep. We get up with the sun and we have to, like, sort out these cows. So really they can only exist in bringing this medieval artisan skills back to.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

A middle class that's happy to buy it 100%. So part of the thing is they have really, I think, very admirable ideas and goals, but their process, their. This movement is not helping or affecting the people who are most hurt by the terrible working conditions of Victorian England. Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, that's always the case, right? You can. You can have grand, lofty ambitions, but the economics are always going to underpin. Does this work or not? What's interesting about Morris, he's obviously self taught, as we've heard all these things he's picking up. He's also getting other people to teach themselves. He's inspiring others. We know of an artist called William de Morgan. He teaches himself ceramics. He has a minor mishap. Do you want to guess what happens?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Does he blow up a kiln?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, he does.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It's every ceramicist nightmare.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

But not even just a kiln. Like his whole workshop. Oh, my God.

[Greg Jenner]

It's like his house is on fire.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

He lives, though, he survives. And then he just. He just moves. He's like, see ya. He moves to Cheney Walk. Very fancy. Love that for him. And he then actually has success with his various experimentations and he becomes renowned for his stained glass windows and his tiles with Islamic decoration and his furniture. And in 1882, the year after Morris & Co. Moves to Merton Abbey, he too moves to Merton Abbey for his business.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

And Morris, I think, has the power to bring people in, not only artistically and emotionally, but also physically.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, gentrifying area.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Just get all up into Merton Abbey and make it Britain's hottest spot. I have no idea what Merton Abbey is, to be honest. It's near Wimbledon. I don't know what it is. It used to be like a historic calico area, but it meant that he, William Morris, had created a world where other craftsmen were all working together to furnish big houses and churches.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, he's the Beyonce of the Arts and Crafts movement. If he does a country album, everybody thinks, hey, maybe we can all add this influence to our genre.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, he's beautifully said.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Game changer.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

I think he would love to know that he is the Beyonce.

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[Greg Jenner]

There's another artist we should mention, actually, because just she's slightly different in that she went outside. Gertrude Jekyll.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Gertrude Jekyll, who.

[Greg Jenner]

Who did interior, but she also did gardens.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, she's most well known for her garden design, but she also was doing all sorts of interiors, including designing embroidery and doing the embroidery herself. And she had a great name. Gertrude Jekyll.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It's a great name.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, it's. It's. I mean, there's quite. There's quite a lot of good names in this episode.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. But she really encapsulates this Arts and Crafts interest in blending together outdoor space and indoor space. They wanted these Arts and Crafts homes to have conversations between gardens and the interior.

[Greg Jenner]

The thing that I find quite interesting is the Arts and Crafts ethos moves beyond Morris's control. And that. That happens. Right. We happen to see that in music, we see that in comedy.

[Carriad Lloyd]

People start a cult. You can't keep hold of it. Before you know it, they're starting their own cult.

[Greg Jenner]

But we get a sense of the Arts and Crafts movement out of England into Scotland, into Wales, into Ireland, maybe internationally, I don't know.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, yeah, there is. The movement takes. Kind of goes across the Atlantic and hits the US as well via things like journals and lectures from people who are in the movement. It was going to the US after World War I. It was going to Japan. It had implications. It kind of had ripples everywhere. And it brought up all of this desire to preserve handicrafts generally. So there were all of these movements within Britain that were founded in this period to keep craftsmanship alive. There was. Was the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, which I already mentioned in 1887. There was the Art Workers Guild in 1884. And they were a debating society where people just sat and debated about the principles of art and design.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yes, please, hardcore, I'm there. Sign me up.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

I would not be there because debate makes me stressed, because I hate confrontation. But you can go for me, you can tell me about it after. There was the Fine Needlework association, which was an organization founded around the same time to give employment to, I really.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Hope the Fine Needlework Association. And what was the other one you said the aesthetics, like, met on the street. And it was like, da, da, da, da, with their, like, needles. The other side's got, like, knitting needles.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

There were so many, like, embroidery societies. There was, like, the Royal Embroidery Society. There was the Royal School of Needlework. Like, it's. There's the Fine Needlework association, but these people.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I mean, I like the Fine Needlework association, but they're no Royal Needlework Association. Like, their work is fine.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Luckily for everybody involved, they were all, like, filling one tiny little niche. So, like, the Fine Need Work association was specifically to give employment to invalid girls and women, or, like, girls and women who couldn't leave the home. And they were producing a lot of smocks, which I find interesting because, so smocks are, like, embroidered, you know. You know what a smock is, right? Like, it's about farm labor, and it's about comfortable, like, workwear at the farm. But smocks were really popular in this period in terms of creating this idea of, like, rural English life. So it's disabled girls and women making these symbols of an idealized English rural.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Life which people in a city are wearing to heart. Back to a world that doesn't exist anymore. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

There's also another amazing. We've had some amazing names. We've already had Thomas Cobden Sanderson, who gave us the phrase the Arts and Crafts movement. But now I have to present to you Ms. Eglantine Jebb.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Seems like a name you got in. In, like, a name generator, I think.

[Carriad Lloyd]

You know what? Why are there no Eglantines anymore? Bring us. Bring back eggy.

[Greg Jenner]

So Mrs. Eglintine Jebb is the Eggy Jeb. Eggy Jeb. She sets up the Home Arts and Industries association, and they're doing, like, largely.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Great stuff as well. So they're also set, like, with that, the Home Arts and Industries Association. They are setting up handicraft classes in cities and villages. They're supporting local schools. They're alleviating seasonal unemployment. Nice word that I just made up unemployment. And they're basically trying to keep people out of the pub.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So largely admirable, slightly in your face, moralistic vibes going on in the Victorian times.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Was there anyone not having a moral in your face vibe?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah. Well, so that's very well said, because all of these organizations are basically founded for two reasons. One of them is this Victorian philanthropy. So they're trying to help the poor, they're trying to help the underserved in a moralistic way. And then they're also trying to preserve these handicraft Skills that they're scared industrialization will destroy.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

We should turn to your specialism needlework, other than your previous west side Story needle stabbing in the street sort of fired. Needlework is something that is also part of the movement, but in some ways is a specialist skill that they're trying to revive. Is that fair?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Oh, yes. Because this is a time where everybody is understandably kind of freaking out about embroidery. In about 1830 or just before, around that period comes on the scene, an art form called Berlin wool work. It's basically, we would call it needlepoint. And they are producing really cheap canvases, really cheap, brightly colored wool threads because synthetic dies are now a thing, and lots of cheap paper patterns. And then all of a sudden, everybody could embroider for really cheap. And it was really easy because they only encouraged the use of two stitches, cross stitch and tent stitch. And so people.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yes, please. Those are my favorite stitches. We don't need blanket. Okay.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

This thing when can go run. Yeah. No, no. Cross and tent only. You were born to be doing Berlin wool work, and it was taking over everything everywhere. It's what everybody was producing. Slippers, valances, bed covers, purses, everything in between. But people were really scared that the popularity of Berlin wool work would mean that every other traditional embroidery technique would be lost.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So a lot of arts and crafts embroidery was kind of coming out of that move away from Berlin Woolworth to create really naturalistic.

[Carriad Lloyd]

So it's like someone produced, painted by numbers, made it easy. And everyone was like, everyone will forget how to paint. Or I guess, like, AI AI. And everyone's like, you're gonna forget how.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

To paint the AI of the 19th century for sure.

[Greg Jenner]

That's it. We also have some art to show you a piece of needlework.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Special treat.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you want to pass it along? Isabella? This piece of needlework, this an embroidery. What are we talking about here? Isabella?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yes.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So this is a framed embroidery that would hang on a wall. It was made at the Royal School of Art needlework, which is now called the Royal School of Needlework that was founded in 1872 by Lady Victoria Welby. And it was basically founded to rev beautiful and practically lost art of embroidery and to provide suitable employment for gentlewomen who, through loss of fortune or other reverses, are obliged to earn their own livelihood. That's quotes from her. But basically the daughters of professionals like lawyers, business people or doctors who needed to earn a living before they got married. And they were creating needlework for exhibition, commission, display, sale, and they were creating Embroidery for loads of arts and crafts homes.

[Greg Jenner]

Carrie, would you like to describe the embroidery for us?

[Carriad Lloyd]

So it's kind of a pale, peachy pink. It's giving quite a lot of 80s wedding vibes. It would definitely be on a placemat in the 80s.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. This is very. This is very sort of rivals Julie Cooper rivals territory, isn't it?

[Carriad Lloyd]

But it's very beautiful. And this is the thing about embroidery as saying, my mother in law did a textile degree and was an amazing, amazing textile artist. And if you know how hard it.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Is and how much time it takes.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And how much time it takes. But it can be easy to look at something and go, oh, right, yeah. Pink flowers and they're both. But this must have taken hours. It's so beautiful and like, it looks like it's painted. It's stunning.

[Greg Jenner]

So we get the kind of. The broadening out of the movement, the ethos beyond the Arts and Crafts movement of William Morris's control. It gets into Edinburgh social union in 1885. It's in Ireland by the 1890s. You know, it's really gone beyond his control, but in a good way. Right. It's not, you know, he's not trying to hold it. Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's kind of morphed into its own thing.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Which is amazing. There's one question I suppose we should address is that although there's the sort of democratic element of recruiting the boys from the School for the Destitute and trying to bring women in, all of the artists we've met so far? Well, no, we've had good. But I'd say they're. They're of a certain class.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

We'll get into the women in a second.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

They shop at white.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I think it's very white. Male middle class.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So I'm just. I'm wondering if they walk the walk as well as talking the talk. When it came to genuinely changing who could be an artist and who could buy this stuff, is it middle class people?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

For middle class people, I think they walked the walk as well as they could and it did end up being middle class people making stuff for middle class people simply because of what was feasible and what was.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

What the logistics were. But I think they wanted something big. It did have a radical philosophy. Philosophy that wanted to change the landscape of industrial production and make art available to the masses. But when it comes down to it, craftsmanship, this really high quality handicraft that they were advocating for, it takes time and therefore it takes money. So not everybody could afford that finely crafted stuff. And yes, you're right, the practitioners, the people involved were usually from the middle class. What it did do was open up some job opportunities for some people from the lower classes and it did get people thinking about what a life beyond capitalism and mechanization could look like. But yeah, the movement did not by and large change the lives of people who really needed their lives changed in Victorian England. But we can't forget that William Morris was a socialist with really, he, you know, he had strong ideals and he did want a better life for all. And that kind of radical thinking is, is fairly present throughout the movement.

[Greg Jenner]

But it's interesting, he also introduced Production Line into his and we would normally say Henry Ford.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

And there are real contradictions to him. Like he was at one point the director of a copper mine in Devon that his dad had bought shares in. And that is currently a topic of conversation and discourse in the scholarship. And so he wasn't without flaws. I mean, humans are contradictory and he was too. I, I think the movement had really good ideas, but the world of capitalism in which they found themselves meant that they couldn't really free themselves from that system.

[Greg Jenner]

There is something that Mary Seaton Watts does that I think is genuinely commendable. Carrie Ad, she was recruited to do a Compton Mortuary Chapel commission and she decided she would recruit local people.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, she recruited 71 local people for the project and she trained them in skills like ceramic dynamics. And actually they left that project with so many skills that they set up their own Compton Potters Art Guild. So there were real moments of attempting to spread the knowledge. I mean the destitute boys school is one of those things as well where even though they couldn't enact a national system of like bringing the art to the people, there were moves being made on a small scale.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. So hot in the right place, I think. Carrie.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it depends how much you make of your ethos. Being like, this is for, this is for everyone, guys. Also, how much is that copper mine worth?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I actually need a new house.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Copper mine is the situation.

[Carriad Lloyd]

If we just do it art, we could sell it for double the price. Yeah, fine. So I agree with you. They're born and working in a system which will not allow them to be free. But it's interesting that that's also what they marketed themselves.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's very reminiscent of like modern day wealthy hipsters or just wealthy left wing people generally who are Amy, aiming for a better world, but they have more access to that better world than anybody else.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It's classic gentrification as well, isn't it? Like you're saying, like they move into an area that is destitute and has been ignored, they live there cheaply and then they destroy the area for people who've lived there for generations because it becomes a cool area where the artists are. And then the house prices go up and then like, no one can afford to live there anymore. So.

[Greg Jenner]

And. And women in the movement, were they given equal weighting? Were they given equal respect, stature? I mean, we've heard lots of names, but they're often the wives of or daughters of famous men.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah, I would say sometimes this was an opportunity for women to be more present than in other art movements, for sure. And there is actually a lot of exciting scholarship that's coming out about the women of the Arts and Crafts movement that is happening right now. So if I talked about all of the women, I would be here all day. But I'll give you some quick names. There was the stained glass designer Mary Lowndes. There was the metal worker Charlotte Newman, painter and enameler Edith B. Dawson. And Mae Morris. She was not only an embroiderer, but she was a textile historian and a designer. And she actually took over the management of Morris and company's embroidery department when she was 23.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Iconic. But sexism was definitely still present. So the membership to the Art Workers Guild was only open to men. There had not been a female member of the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1922. So that's all of the years of the Arts and Crafts movement. And Mae Morris and people like her were pretty sick of all of that. So in 1907 she founded the Women's Guild of Arts. I should say that generally this art movement and the fact that it puts craft on the same level as art means that there is more room for women because it's oftentimes women who are doing those crafts. But a lot of the art and craft that is being produced in this period is still pretty gendered. So it's mostly women who are doing the embroidery, it's mostly men who are doing the furniture. But that kind of Ruskin esque idea of an artist being involved in every step of the process helps as well. It allows people like Mae Morris to not only be the maker, but also the designer and the thinker behind it. Women were exhibiting and designing alongside men. And there are some interesting connections between this movement and the British fight for women's suffrage, which is pretty cool. And then There are also some, like, fun little moments of gender equality. Gender equality is a little tricky. So, like Thomas James Cobden Sanderson, our boy who comes up with the name, he and his wife actually end up sharing their surname. They like, do the equal thing of making a joint surname, Cobden Sanderson. And it's like these, I don't know, a little rare act. Glimpse into how some people in this movement viewed the gender divide and how things should actually be.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Wow. Okay, this is positive. They can stay.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

How does the Arts and Crafts movement finish? I mean, people just go, that's enough. Thank you.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Time to tidy up, guys. Look at this mess. Come on.

[Greg Jenner]

I've invented acrylic plastics.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, we need to eat on this table.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

So, I mean, nothing changes. Things like war, I would say. So World War I comes in and the aesthetic changes massively. People don't have the need or desire for any of these, Any of this fine craftsmanship anymore. The war comes and all of a sudden it's modernism and deco. And Deco and, like, what comes after it. So while the Arts and crafts movement technically ends at World War I, here in Britain, it does have ripples in other places. So the American movement goes and becomes its own thing with architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It's going to places like Hungary, Poland and Finland, where there's a real interest in traditional handicraft skills. It starts in Japan at World War I and after. So the implications are felt kind of far and wide. And even though, yeah, the movement is definitely over, we are still in a world where we are kind, kind of constantly seeing arts and crafts images. So is it really over?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Is it? No, I don't think it is. I think we still, as we've just said, it's very apt for modern life. It fits.

[Greg Jenner]

It's. It's back in fashion. Maybe it never left. Yeah, maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Maybe it's the friends we made along the way.

[Greg Jenner]

The nuance window. Time now for the nuance window. This is where Kariad and I recline in our drawing room in Red House with our embroidery samplers while Dr. Isabella has two minutes to tell us something we need to know about the Arts and crafts movement we haven't heard already. So my stopwatch is ready. Take away.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Really? Your stopwatch? I'm scared. Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

If you ever see a William Morris design, whether it be on wallpaper, an Advent calendar or a fridge magnet, chances are it's probably Morris's work called Strawberry Thief. Not only is it Morris's most beloved pattern. It's also one of the most popular textile designs ever. It's inspired everything from a novel to a video game. You can find Strawberry Thief covered products on the shelves of John Lewis, Waitrose, M s Waterstones, and even pets at home, truly fulfilling Morris's desire to make his art accessible. With Strawberry Thief, Morris captures the thrushes that he caught stealing fruit in his garden at Kelmscott Manor. Amidst multicolored flowers, scrolling vines and frilly leaves are pairs of birds. Those with yellow and pink wings have their mouths agape. Are they shocked that they've been caught mid tweet or mid munch? The birds with blue wings are the thieves in question. Looking very satisfied with plump strawberries hanging from their beaks. Morris felt that everyone should have access to beautiful surroundings, rest and work that inspires satisfaction and pride. And he was deliberate about what sorts of products should be made from each of his designs in its original form. Back in 1883, Strawberry Thief was a printed cotton furnishing textile intended to be used for curtains, walls or loose covers on furniture. Furniture? Morris printed it using the indigo discharge method, a many centuries old technique primarily used in Asia that took an especially long time to produce. Because of this, Strawberry Thief was one of the most expensive printed furnishings available from Morris and company. But the price didn't stop those little strawberry stealing birds from becoming one of Morris most commercially successful patterns. Clearly the commercial success of Strawberry thief lives on 140ish years after the textile was produced. Some things are different though. That pattern isn't limited to furnishing fabrics and it isn't expensive. This is the case for other Arts and Crafts movement designs too. William Morris did intend his work to be widely available, but he was also strategic and specific about how and on what objects his designs should be used. The aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts movement are more accessible to us now than ever before. And I wonder what those artists and makers would think about the ubiquity of their designs. Adorning everything from dog beds to force.

[Greg Jenner]

Beautiful. Look at that. Look at that. Two minutes and two seconds.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I'm sweaty now.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Wow.

[Carriad Lloyd]

It is so ubiquitous everywhere that it's almost gone back round to being like a bit passe. Dare I say Strawberry Thief, like because it's on notebooks and pens and every gift shop in every National Trust property in the country has all the Strawberry Thief you can desire. That would be my slightly snobby opinion.

[Greg Jenner]

But ironically it's back to mass production again, isn't it?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

It's the sort of memeification of the craft.

[Carriad Lloyd]

But to be fair to any Morris, it is a banging pattern.

[Greg Jenner]

It's so good.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And the first time, I think you realize what it is because I think we've all seen it and do you know what I mean? And then I went, first time I was like, oh, I see. That's his. Like, he designed that. That's a thing like, rather than like, it's just a pat, like who? Who. You know, a pattern you see every day. I think you do go, oh, that is a really good pattern. There is a reason it's so successful.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

It's so charming. Isn't he?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, he's still. Still very charming.

[Greg Jenner]

It's beautiful. So what do you know now? Great. Well, it's time now for the so what do you know now? This is our quickfire quiz for Kariad, the quiz queen to see how much she has learned. You are renowned in this show for heroic achievements in quizzing. But we've got 10 questions for you, Kariad.

[Carriad Lloyd]

I'm gonna answer William Morris to every single one.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

You'd probably almost be right.

[Greg Jenner]

That might work. Let's see. Okay, question one. Who coined the term arts and crafts movement?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, it wasn't John Ruskin. It was the other person with three names.

[Greg Jenner]

I'll give you a clue.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Cobden Sanderson.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, very good. Yeah, well done. Yeah. Thomas Cobden Sanderson. Very good. Well remembered. That was a hard one. Well done. Question 2. What economic development was the arts and crafts movement reacting against?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Industrialization?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Question three. Can you name two other arts and crafts practices besides William Morris?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Edward Burne Jones? May Morris.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, sure, that's fine.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Dante Rossetti. Yeah. Philip Webb. Jane Byrd. Yeah, there's lots of people. Question 4. What went wrong with the Arthurian mural that Morris and his circle produced for the Oxford Union debating chamber?

[Carriad Lloyd]

They didn't put a primer on that baby. They didn't white paint it.

[Greg Jenner]

First it was just bare brick and then some Lovely Arthuriana. Question 5. What was the name of the house designed for William and Jane Morris to live in by the architect Philip William?

[Carriad Lloyd]

That was red. That one.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Red house.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, Very good. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Question six. Where did Morris and co hire a number of their employees from which school?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, the school in Euston. Yeah, that one for destitute boys.

[Greg Jenner]

That's it.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yeah, that's it.

[Greg Jenner]

The industrial school. Industrial home for destitute boys.

[Carriad Lloyd]

There's a lot of names. The Royal industrial Needlework School for boys and girls who don't have families.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 7. What two crafts was Gertrude Jekyll a practitioner of?

[Carriad Lloyd]

Gardening and interior design?

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

What particular type of.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Of embroidery?

[Greg Jenner]

It was Embroidery. Yeah, Very good. Well done.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Always embroidery.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Embroidery.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 8. What arts and crafts organization was founded by Lady Victoria Welby in 1872 and is now looked after by a certain Dr. Isabella?

[Carriad Lloyd]

The Royal Needlework Society. The Royal Society for Needlework.

[Greg Jenner]

Royal School of Needlework. Yeah, I'll accept it.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Everything. If it's not a school, it's an institute, it's a guild, it's all of the words.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Training skills school, Institute of needlework and Ceramicists for poor boys of Euston.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 9. How did Mary Seton Watts put radical Arts and Crafts ideas into practice when commissioned to do the Compton Mortuary chapel?

[Carriad Lloyd]

She got 71 local people. She did, and they learned ceramics and started their own trades guild.

[Greg Jenner]

And they didn't blow up their kilns.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

She got the number as well.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, that's very. Question 10. What was it about the Art Workers Guild that did not enamour them to women?

[Carriad Lloyd]

She's such a funny phrase. What was it that was very skilled. They didn't let women in.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Yeah.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, sorry. They didn't let women in.

[Greg Jenner]

They did not let women in and.

[Carriad Lloyd]

They mostly made them do embroidery and the Royal Academy didn't even let a woman in either, so.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There we go. Carrie A.D. lloyd. Never in doubt. 10 out of 10.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Oh, I've been so annoyed if I'd lost that.

[Greg Jenner]

It was 10 out of 10. Carry. Well done. Thank you so much for coming in again. And thank you, Dr. Isabella Listener. If after today's episode you Want more Carrie A.D. loyd in your life, you can check our episodes on Mary Wollstonecraft. Well, Craft Arts and yeah, Baby got there in the end. Sorry. Or of course, the George and Valentine's episode where we talked about some. Some surprisingly racy nudes being sent in the post.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Yep. Drawings of eyes.

[Greg Jenner]

Drawings of eyes.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Fan work.

[Greg Jenner]

Yep. Yep. And if you want to hear more about British artistic movements, why not listen to our 100th episode on the Bloomsbury Group, who were radical and also just incredibly randy. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review. Share the show with your friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to Me on BBC Sound, so you never miss an episode. But I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner. We had the incredible Dr. Isabella Rosner from the Royal School of Needlework. Thank you, Isabella.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Thank you so much. For having me. I've had the best time.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner we had the cracking Cariad Lloyd. Thank you, Cariad.

[Carriad Lloyd]

My arts and crafts are now fulfilled.

[Dr. Isabella Rosner]

Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we reupholster another neglected historical subject. But for now, I'm off to go and teach myself ceramics and maybe blow up my house. Bye. This episode of youf're Dead To Me was researched by John Norman Mason. It was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoose and me. The audio producer was Steve Hanke and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Nagoose. And our executive editor was James Cook. You're Dead To Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Hello, I'm Robin Ince.

[Greg Jenner]

And I'm Brian Cox.

[Carriad Lloyd]

And this is the Infinite Monkey Hedgerow.

[Greg Jenner]

It's just he was unable to write a funny joke for the introduction.

[Carriad Lloyd]

That's amazing.

[Greg Jenner]

The new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. Science with funny bits.

[Carriad Lloyd]

Science with bits.

[Greg Jenner]

Funny science plus bits. So the reason that the Neanderthals died out, you're claiming, is because they were them astronomers? Yes, exactly. This is how we investigate cybercrime. We look for the yachts.

[Carriad Lloyd]

The new series of the Infinite Monkey.

[Greg Jenner]

Cage from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.