William Morris's Lea Chintz: History and Design

What Lea shows

The V&A describes Lea as a pattern of flowers and leaves. That is the extent of the identification in the museum records: no plants are named to species in the excerpts available, and no documented statement by Morris about the design appears in the evidence.

It is safest, then, to describe the pattern in the terms the records use. The two furnishing fabric examples, O270915 and O270914, are printed with the Lea pattern of flowers and leaves, and carry Morris & Co. labels.

Dates and attribution: what the records say

The V&A records Lea as registered on 2 February 1885. Registration is not the same as the date the design was drawn, and the evidence does not establish a separate design date, so none is given here.

Attribution is consistent across the three records. The V&A credits the design to William Morris for Morris & Co. in each case: the printer's end of block printed and painted cotton, O89661, is recorded as designed by Morris and manufactured by Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey Works, and the two furnishing fabrics, O270915 and O270914, are recorded as designed by Morris for the firm.

The dating differs slightly between records. The V&A dates O89661 to 1885 to 1889, while O270915 and O270914 are given production dates of 1885 and 1885 to 1919, the later end of that range indicating continued production into the twentieth century.

How Lea was printed

The three V&A records describe the technique differently, and it is more accurate to report each record than to force a single account. The O89661 fragment is block printed and painted cotton. O270915 is dyed, discharged and block printed cotton. O270914 is block printed cotton.

The differences may reflect the state of each object, the level of detail in each catalogue entry, or genuinely different production runs. The records themselves do not explain the variation, so this page does not either.

Merton Abbey and the printer's marks

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the O89661 record places manufacture at Morris & Co.'s Merton Abbey Works. The fragment bears the legend 'REGD MORRIS AND COMPANY' and the initials 'H.H'.

The V&A notes that Harry Hill, a block printer with Morris & Co., was employed by Morris in about 1883, soon after the opening of the Merton Abbey works, and was listed as the printer of two printed fabrics designed by William Morris exhibited in the 1889 Arts and Crafts Exhibition (Nos 426, 427). The excerpt mentions Hill alongside the 'H.H' mark but does not explicitly state that the initials are his, so the connection is left open here.

The fragment itself has an unusual history. According to the V&A, the scrap was found stitched into the lining of an early tapestry which Morris & Co. restored at the beginning of the twentieth century, which explains its survival as a printer's end rather than a complete length.

Three V&A examples

Three examples of Lea are recorded at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The table lists each with its object number and the essentials of the record.

No holdings of Lea beyond these three V&A records appear in the evidence, and no later reissues are documented in the sources used here.

Lea among the river chintzes

Lea belongs to Morris's group of river-named printed textiles. The parent overview of the river patterns gathers the group together.

Several sibling designs have their own research pages. You can read the story of Cray, find more on Lodden, or follow the story of Evenlode, each treated with the same object-level approach used here.

Where to find Lea today

Original-period examples of Lea survive in the V&A's records, which makes the design one of the better documented of the river chintzes. If you are looking for a printed version of the pattern for your own walls, our William Morris Original Designs collection includes prints drawn from Morris-era designs.