The Morris Chair: History of an Arts and Crafts Icon

What the records call this chair, and what they do not

The closest documented object is an armchair in the Victoria and Albert Museum, museum number O372099. Its record describes an adjustable back, turned oak, brass castors and fittings, and upholstery covers of 'Violet and Columbine' wool and mohair.

The record does not name this chair a 'Morris chair'. It dates the object to about 1883 to 1900, says it was made for Morris & Co., and attributes the fabric to William Morris and the armchair to Philip Webb. Because those attributions rest on a single institutional source, they are best read as the V&A's position rather than a settled consensus.

The honest scope of this page follows from that gap. No supplied source defines the Morris chair as a type, dates its invention, or records William Morris speaking about it. What can be done is to describe the documented object, set it beside other Morris & Co. furniture that is well recorded, and flag a common confusion in the records.

The adjustable-back armchair at the V&A

The V&A's armchair is built from turned oak. The back adjusts, the chair sits on brass castors, and brass fittings appear elsewhere in its construction. The upholstery covers are woven in 'Violet and Columbine', a wool and mohair fabric.

According to the V&A record, the chair was made for Morris & Co. and dates to about 1883 to 1900. The same record attributes the armchair's design to Philip Webb and the 'Violet and Columbine' fabric to William Morris. The division matters: a furniture attribution to Webb sits alongside a textile attribution to Morris, which is how much Morris & Co. work is actually documented.

That provenance is a fixed point in its history, though the supplied sources do not say more about the house or the circumstances of the commission.

Morris & Co. furniture in context: the Sussex chair

The Sussex chair shows how furniture from Morris & Co. is documented and attributed in museum records. The V&A holds a Sussex armchair, museum number O7883, in ebonised beech with turned ornament and a rush seat, dated 1870 to 1890. The V&A states that it was probably designed by Philip Webb and made by Morris & Co., and that it was named after a country chair found in Sussex which inspired its turned frame and rush seat.

The chair's documented use gives a sense of its circulation. William Morris and his wife Jane used Sussex chairs at Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent, from 1860, and later at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith. Edward Burne-Jones kept Sussex armchairs in his studio, as did the sculptor Alfred Gilbert.

Robert Edis recommended the Sussex chair in his book 'Decoration and Furnishing of Town Houses' in 1881.

Examples from the Sussex range were supplied for students' rooms at Newnham College, Cambridge, and for galleries in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. One caution applies: the record for the Sussex chair is truncated in its trading section, so details of its supply and commercial history are incomplete in the sources used here.

A warning from the records: another 'Morris' chair

A second museum object shows why name-based identification of a 'Morris chair' needs care. The V&A also holds a 'Toby' stacking chair, museum number O62441, which its record attributes to H. Morris and Co. of Glasgow, designed and made by that firm in about 1956 to 1962, in moulded plywood and steel.

The supplied sources do not establish any relationship between H. Morris & Co. of Glasgow and William Morris or Morris & Co. A shared surname alone is not evidence of a connection, which is why attributions should come from records rather than from names.

Why the craft context matters

In the V&A's account, William Morris looked backwards into history for alternatives to machine-age goods, focusing on what he saw as more 'honest' work and on the revival of craft-based styles and techniques.

It is equally clear what the sources omit. No statement by William Morris about the Morris chair appears in the supplied material, and no source confirms that the adjustable-back armchair described above is the object commonly called the Morris chair. Claims about the chair type's history should therefore be checked against records rather than repeated from memory. The same documentary habit runs through the related collection of Morris designs and prints, where each piece is described by its own record.