Who Makes Morris & Co. Designs Today?

The short answer, and its limits

The honest answer is that the sources reviewed here do not settle the question of present-day ownership or licensing of Morris & Co. designs. No institutional record consulted makes a general statement about which firm or firms produce the designs today, which designs are currently in production, or the full current status of any Morris & Co. division.

What can be said with a source is historical. According to the V&A, Morris & Co. was founded by William Morris in 1875, producing textiles commercially for sale in two London shops. Everything else on this page builds outward from that documented base, and flags clearly where the evidence stops.

What the record establishes about the firm

The V&A's account gives the firm a clear shape. Morris made wallpaper one of the first things his new interior decorations company put into serial production in the early 1860s, and the first paper he designed was Trellis in 1862, suggested by the rose trellis in the garden of Red House, his home in Kent. Daisy followed in 1864 and Fruit in 1865, according to the museum's record.

The museum dates the founding of Morris & Co. itself to 1875, with textiles produced commercially for sale in two London shops. Over his career Morris produced more than 50 wallpapers. His woven work has documented milestones too: the V&A records 'Tulip and Rose', the first dateable design by Morris for a woven furnishing textile, as registered in 1876, and describes 'Peacock and Dragon' as an imposing yet popular design from 1878, noting that many of his woven designs were inspired by 16th- and 17th-century Italian silks.

Who actually made the designs in Morris's lifetime

Morris & Co. objects were rarely made by Morris alone. The V&A records that the 'Wreath' wallpaper of 1876 was printed using wood-blocks cut by the family firm Barrett's in Bethnal Green, and printed in distemper by the London firm Jeffrey & Co., which specialised in high quality 'Art' wallpapers. Jeffrey & Co. also manufactured and printed the 'Sunflower' wallpaper of 1879, according to the museum's record.

Textiles involved other named specialists. The V&A holds 'Dove and Rose', a furnishing fabric of woven silk and wool double cloth designed by Morris in 1879 and made by Alexander Morton & Co. for Morris & Co.; the museum records that Alexander Morton established his textile company in Scotland in 1867 and manufactured silk and wool fabrics and gauzes for the firm. In 1875 Morris began working with Thomas Wardle, owner of a dyeing works in Leek, Staffordshire, keen to re-establish the use of natural dyes, and the first textile likely printed by Wardle is 'Marigold' (1875).

This division of labour matters for the modern question. Asking who makes Morris & Co. designs today is really asking who holds the roles that firms like Jeffrey & Co., Barrett's, Alexander Morton & Co. and Wardle once held. The V&A characterises Morris's designs as always subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions, and the making of them was always a chain of specialist hands. The physical process behind those chains is described in our page on the story of woodblock wallpaper printing.

What Morris himself said

The sources reviewed contain one verifiable statement by Morris about wallpaper design.

That advice sits alongside the V&A's characterisation of his designs as subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions. What the sources do not contain is any statement by Morris about the future production or continuation of his firm's designs after his death, so nothing can be claimed on that point.

Disputed dates and open questions

Two points in the record do not fully agree, and readers should know about them. On the 'Fruit' wallpaper, the V&A's object record gives a primary date of 1865-66 with first issue around 1866, while the museum's survey of Morris's papers lists Fruit as 1865. Both come from the same institution, and the difference is one of framing rather than a flat contradiction, but the design date cannot be stated more precisely than that here.

The second conflict concerns the firm's identity. The V&A dates the founding of Morris & Co. to 1875, yet the same museum records Morris's interior decorations company putting wallpapers into serial production in the early 1860s, with Trellis in 1862. The exact relationship between the early decorating business and the entity named Morris & Co. founded in 1875 is not established by the sources reviewed.

On present-day ownership and licensing, the following points remain unestablished by the evidence used here:

• Which firm or firms own or license Morris & Co. designs today, beyond what any single object-level statement might cover.
• Whether any Morris & Co. division holds rights to designs other than 'Fruit', and which designs are currently in production.
• Whether any institutional source makes a general statement about who makes Morris & Co. designs today.
• The full name and current status of any Morris & Co. division, and verification of current ownership at the time of reading.

If you need a definitive answer on current ownership, go to the present-day rights holder directly or to a museum's latest published record, and check the date of whatever statement you find. This page deliberately does not guess.

Where to look at documented Morris & Co. work

The concrete evidence base for claims about the firm's designs is the surviving objects, and several are held by the V&A. The museum holds a specimen of the 'Fruit' wallpaper, block-printed in distemper colours on paper, part of a pattern book containing 25 Morris & Co. patterns from 1862-81. It also holds the 'Wreath' wallpaper of 1876, a foliate pattern of entwined green leaves and blue flowers, and the 'Sunflower' wallpaper of 1879, manufactured and printed by Jeffrey & Co.

For woven work, the V&A holds 'Dove and Rose', the 1879 silk and wool double cloth designed by Morris and made by Alexander Morton & Co. The museum describes 'Fruit' as one of the most enduringly popular of William Morris's designs, used in many artistic homes of the period. Seeing these documented specimens, with their museum numbers and records, is the surest way to ground any claim about what a Morris & Co. design actually is. Our William Morris original designs collection draws on the same documented designs for its prints.