William De Morgan and William Morris

Who William De Morgan Was

The V&A's record for the Membland Hall panel gives William De Morgan's dates as 1839 to 1917, and this page relies on that source for them. No independent biographical record is supplied here, so the dates should be read as attributed to that single object entry rather than confirmed across sources.

His standing in the field is easier to state. The V&A records that De Morgan became the leading pottery and tile manufacturer associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. That places him inside the wider circle documented in the William Morris biography, which covers the firm and the makers around it.

The Chelsea Workshop and the Place of Tiles

According to the V&A, De Morgan established his own workshop in Chelsea in 1872, having previously experimented with a kiln in the cellar of his parents' home. The move from cellar experiments to a proper workshop marks the point where his ceramics work became a business.

The market for his tiles existed before either workshop opened. The V&A records that hand-painted tiles became a popular feature of artistic interiors from the 1860s onwards, commonly used in and around the fireplace. De Morgan's Chelsea workshop and Morris's firm both served that demand.

Designs Passed Between Two Studios

The clearest evidence of how the two men divided the work is De Morgan's own recollection, recorded by Mrs A.M.W. Stirling, his sister-in-law. William De Morgan, as she recalled it, said:

The passage confirms that Morris supplied designs which De Morgan executed, and it names two of them, Tulip and Trellis and Poppy. The third design went unnamed because De Morgan himself had forgotten its name. The same recollection also records that De Morgan said he never could work except by himself and in his own manner.

The V&A adds a detail about Tulip and Trellis specifically: the design was produced concurrently by both Morris's firm and De Morgan, and the Morris & Co. version was painted solely in blue. How and when the two men first met is not established by the sources reviewed here.

The Membland Hall Tile Panel

The best documented joint object is V&A object O8046. According to the V&A, it is a tile panel with William Morris listed as designer and William Frend De Morgan as maker, dated 1876 and made in England. The museum describes it as 66 individual tiles, hand painted with a pattern of flowers and foliage, slip-covered and hand-painted in various colours and glazed, on earthenware blanks.

The commission came through Morris. The V&A records that the architect of Membland Hall in Devon commissioned the tile panel design from William Morris (1834 to 1896), who had the tiles painted in the studios of William de Morgan. The same museum entry states that Morris & Co. were commissioned to decorate Membland Hall by George Devey, architect to the banker E.C. Baring, Baron Revelstoke. The architect who commissioned the tile design itself is not named in the record.

The panel survives out of a building that does not. The V&A records that Membland Hall was demolished in 1928 and that the panel is one of six surviving panels from the house. The squared up pattern and one other panel are at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, with a note indicating the panel was intended for the bathroom.

Its scale also makes it exceptional. The V&A states that the Membland Hall tile panel is the only floral pattern for a tile panel on this scale by Morris, and describes it as a rare collaboration between Morris and De Morgan. That makes it the anchor object for anyone studying the Morris firm's collaborations.

A Tulip and Trellis Tile in the V&A

A second object record documents the Tulip and Trellis connection. According to the V&A, object O11149 is a tile with William Morris listed as primary maker and designer, dated 1870 to 1880 with a production date of 1870, made in London. Because this attribution rests on a single source, it is stated here with that institution named.

The museum describes the tile as a tulip and trellis tile, hand-painted in blue and green on tin-glazed earthenware. The record does not say whether this specific tile was produced by Morris's firm or by De Morgan, so the question is best left open.

What the Record Does Not Tell Us

For design-history readers, several gaps in the supplied evidence deserve stating plainly:

• No source states when or how De Morgan first met Morris, or the circumstances of the meeting.
• No full date range for the relationship is given. The evidence consists of individual object dates: according to the V&A, 1870 to 1880 for the tulip and trellis tile and 1876 for the Membland Hall tile panel.
• The third Morris design De Morgan mentions is unnamed, because De Morgan himself said he had forgotten its name.
• The architect of Membland Hall who commissioned the tile design from Morris is not named in the evidence. According to the V&A, George Devey is documented as architect to E.C. Baring, Baron Revelstoke, for the decoration commission.
• The full list and locations of all six surviving Membland Hall panels is not given in the evidence.

Each of these points could be settled by further sources, but none of them can be answered from the object records reviewed here.

Where to See Their Work

Two public holdings are documented in the evidence above. The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow holds the squared up pattern and one other Membland Hall panel, with the note about the bathroom. The V&A holds the Membland Hall tile panel itself (object O8046) and the tulip and trellis tile (object O11149).

The full Membland Hall panel in the V&A is the object to look for first, since it combines Morris's design with De Morgan's making in a single documented piece.