Philip Webb and William Morris

Who Philip Webb Was

The Victoria and Albert Museum gives Philip Webb's dates as 1831 to 1915. That is the extent of the independent biographical detail the records used here provide, and it is worth being plain about that limit rather than filling it from elsewhere.

What the records do establish is his working relationship with Morris. By 1860 Webb was designing for Morris directly, and the objects that survive from that work sit in the V&A. For the wider life that frames this collaboration, the William Morris biography covers Morris's own timeline in the same evidence-led way.

Webb and Morris: What the Records Show

How and when Webb met Morris is a question the evidence used here cannot answer. The records imply contact by 1860, because in that year Webb had already designed an elaborately decorated range of glassware for Morris's personal use at the Red House. A commission of that kind presupposes an established relationship, but no meeting date or circumstances appear in the material.

There is a second gap worth naming. The V&A excerpt that carries Webb's birth and death dates appears only within a summary of the glass, and it is cut off mid-sentence, so the full statement behind it is missing. The dates are given here as the museum states them, attributed, not as independently confirmed biography.

This honesty about gaps is deliberate. A profile built from object records can say a great deal about what Webb made and very little about how the friendship formed, and pretending otherwise would produce exactly the kind of guesswork this page exists to avoid.

The Table Glass Webb Designed for Morris

The glassware range is the most fully documented piece of Webb's work for Morris in these records. By 1860, the V&A records, Webb had designed an elaborately decorated range of glassware for William Morris's personal use at the Red House. This was glass made for one household, not for sale.

The designs were subsequently simplified, probably by Webb according to the V&A, for commercial production by James Powell and Sons Glass Works. The word probably matters: the museum attributes the simplification to Webb but does not state it as certain.

Once in production, the glass was sold exclusively through Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. The V&A notes that despite the range's importance in the firm's accounts, very little of it survives. A commercially significant line can still be nearly lost, and this one nearly was.

Webb kept a passbook in which he recorded his designs matched with prices. Against a small sketch of this shape, the V&A records, he describes the glass as for champagne. The passbook is therefore a document in Webb's own hand, tying the surviving object to its maker's intention.

The Champagne Glass at the V&A

The V&A holds a champagne glass from this range under museum number O9727. According to the museum's record, it was designed by Philip Webb for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. and made by J. Powell and Sons between 1862 and 1870.

The object itself is made of clear glass, hand-blown and part mould-blown. Those two techniques together describe how the vessel was formed: blown by mouth, with a mould used for part of the shaping.

The glass came to the museum through the May Morris Bequest, the V&A records. May Morris, Morris's younger daughter, is covered in more detail in the profile of May Morris as designer and embroiderer, which sets out her own work and her role in what survived of her father's circle.

Among the glasses Webb designed there was also a champagne flute, according to the V&A. The range was therefore a set of related shapes rather than a single form, though as noted above, very little of it survives.

The Birds on 'Trellis'

Webb's second documented contribution to Morris's work is on paper rather than glass. The 'Trellis' wallpaper was the first paper designed by William Morris, but the third to be issued, according to the V&A. The birds in the design were drawn by Philip Webb, as the museum's record states.

The V&A dates the design to 1862, with registration and production in 1864. The museum records both William Morris and Philip Webb as designers of 'Trellis', which is why the attribution is shared rather than Morris's alone.

The paper is block-printed in distemper colours on paper. The V&A describes the pattern as a thorned rose bush with red flowers growing on a wooden trellis, with birds and flying insects, on a pale blue ground. Webb's birds move through Morris's rose framework, and the division of labour is visible in the record even if the two hands are not always easy to separate on the surface.

One surviving colourway is predominantly grey-green, held by the V&A under object number O248458.

Points the Sources Leave Open

Several details that readers often expect from a biography cannot be settled from the evidence used here. They are listed plainly so that the gaps are visible rather than papered over.

The main open points:

• Webb's middle name appears in the 'Trellis' maker records in two renderings, 'Webb, Philip (Speakman)' and 'Webb, Philip Speakman'. The sources disagree on the form, though not on the name itself.
• The birth and death dates of 1831 to 1915 rest on a single V&A source, and the excerpt carrying them is cut off mid-sentence. No independent biographical source in this evidence confirms them.
• The evidence covers only two bodies of shared work, the champagne glass range and the 'Trellis' birds. Any other collaborations between Webb and Morris are not documented here.
• No letters, diaries or biographies documenting the Webb-Morris relationship appear in this evidence base beyond the V&A object records and Webb's design passbook.

None of these gaps makes the documented work less secure. The glass and the wallpaper both carry full object records with museum numbers, makers and dates, which is more than most collaborations of the period can claim.

Where to See Their Work

The concrete places to trace the documented work are the Victoria and Albert Museum's holdings. The champagne glass, museum number O9727, is there from the May Morris Bequest, and the grey-green 'Trellis' colourway, O248458, is in the same collection.

If you want to see how designs like these are reproduced today, the full collection at our print shop shows the range of Morris and Co. patterns available as prints.