Thomas Wardle and William Morris

Who Thomas Wardle Was

The Victoria and Albert Museum gives Thomas Wardle's dates as 1831 to 1909. Beyond that parenthetical, the museum records used for this page do not supply fuller birth or death details, so nothing more is claimed here.

Wardle's trade came through his family. According to the V&A, he took over his father's silk dyeing business, and like Morris he became interested in Eastern patterns. That shared interest matters for what followed: it gave the two men a common ground in pattern sources and in dyeing practice before any fabric carried both their names.

Together, the museum states, they revived the craft of block printing and vegetable dyeing. That pairing of a designer with a working dyer and printer is the basis of everything documented below.

How the Leek Connection Began

How Wardle and Morris first met is not established by the records used here. No date or circumstances for a first meeting appear in the source material, so this page works instead from the documented printing record, which is firm.

On the firm's side, the V&A dates Morris & Co. to 1875, founded by William Morris, producing textiles commercially for sale in two London shops. Printing capacity was the practical problem that a commercial textile business faced, and Leek solved it. William Morris biography pages cover the firm's wider development; the point here is the manufacturing side.

The earliest documented printing link is a pattern called 'Marigold'. The V&A states that 'Marigold' is likely to have been the first of Morris's patterns to be printed by Wardle at Leek. First colour experiments for the design are dated 25 November 1875, which gives the partnership a fixed starting point in the record even though the meeting that led to it does not.

Dyeing and Printing at Hencroft, Leek

For those three years, Leek was the printing house for Morris's printed fabric output.

The volume grew as the collaboration settled. According to the V&A, from February 1878 Wardle was printing fourteen designs for Morris & Co. Fourteen simultaneous patterns in block printing and vegetable dyes was a working programme, not an occasional commission.

The partnership also outlasted the change most likely to have ended it. Morris moved his own textile production to Merton Abbey, yet the V&A records that the printing collaboration lasted throughout the nineteenth century and that the patterns continued to be produced at Leek. Wardle's works, in other words, kept printing Morris patterns alongside Morris's own Merton Abbey operation.

Readers should treat any specific end date found elsewhere as needing its own source.

Key Works: The Documented Fabrics

Three fabrics with V&A object records document the partnership in detail. Each is listed below with its museum number, technique and attribution. One point needs flagging first: the records disagree on the printing firm's name. One record names Thomas Wardle as printer (as a person); another names Wardle & Co. Both positions come from V&A records, and the table preserves the wording of each.

'Snakeshead' is a furnishing fabric of block printed cotton, museum number O87499. The V&A attributes the design to William Morris, dating it 1876 for Morris & Co., and states that it was printed for Morris & Co. by Thomas Wardle, whom the same record lists in the printer role. The record gives Great Britain as the place of production; Leek is given as the place for other Wardle-printed Morris fabrics, so the record for 'Snakeshead' itself is less specific on location.

'Marigold' is a furnishing fabric of block printed silk, museum number O73362. According to the V&A, it was designed by William Morris and printed by Wardle & Co. for Morris & Co. in 1875. As noted above, the first colour experiments for the design are dated 25 November 1875, and the museum considers it likely to have been the first Morris pattern printed by Wardle at Leek.

The third work is a dress fabric of block printed tusser silk, museum number O73361, produced by Thomas Wardle at Leek in 1878. Unlike the two Morris-designed furnishing fabrics, this piece is recorded as Wardle's own production. The V&A states that the floral motif on the tusser silk is taken directly from plate 19 of J.C. Robinson's Treasury of Ornamental Art, published in 1857.

The word probably is the museum's own; the exhibition appearance is not stated as certain.

Paris 1878 and the Rediscovery of the Silks

The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878 gave the Leek work an international stage. The V&A records that 'Marigold' was one of a small group of Morris designs on printed silk exhibited by Thomas Wardle at the exposition. Wardle, not Morris, is the named exhibitor in this record.

What happened to those silks afterwards is part of the story. For most of a century, silk fabrics printed in Staffordshire from designs by an English designer were not recognised as such.

The separate tusser silk, as covered above, was probably shown in the Indian section of the same Paris exhibition and acquired by the Museum from it. The V&A's use of probably is a reminder that exhibition histories in these records are not all stated with the same certainty.

Wardle's Own Sources of Pattern

Wardle's interest in Eastern patterns, noted in the V&A's account of his background, had a practical basis. The museum records that he travelled in the Middle East and Asia, studying manufacture and collecting patterns from museums, archaeological sites and printed sources.

The tusser silk shows one of those printed sources at work. The V&A states that the fabric's floral motif is taken directly from J.C. Robinson's Treasury of Ornamental Art, plate 19, published in 1857.

No symbolic meaning is attached to the motif here. The records describe it as a direct borrowing from a published plate, and that is how it is presented.

Where to See Their Work

All three fabrics discussed on this page are held by the Victoria and Albert Museum. 'Snakeshead', the block printed cotton, is museum number O87499. 'Marigold', the block printed silk, is O73362. The block printed tusser silk dress fabric produced by Wardle at Leek is O73361.

Checking the museum numbers against the V&A's online collection is the fastest way to see the fabrics themselves, since the records are the source for everything stated here. The silks' history, acquired soon after Paris 1878 and only recognised as British work from the 1960s, makes them a useful case study in how textile attributions get established.