William Morris Wallpaper: How His Papers Were Designed and Sold

What Morris Wallpaper Covers

This guide covers wallpapers designed by William Morris and issued through his own firm. According to the V&A, Morris founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861, and the firm became Morris & Co. in 1875. Wallpaper was there from the start: the V&A notes that Morris made wallpaper one of the first things his new interior decorations company put into serial production.

The scope here is deliberately narrow. Printed and woven textiles, embroidery and the full history of the firm belong on their own pages, and this hub links to them rather than repeating them. If you want a short list of famous patterns with dates, the roundup of fourteen Morris patterns handles that; this page goes deeper into how the wallpapers themselves were made and sold.

Wallpaper sat inside a wider making practice. Morris designed across media, and the same plant forms and printing logic appear in his textiles as in his papers. Keeping the two apart on the page helps, because the records for each are different and the attributions do not always transfer.

The First Papers: Trellis, Daisy and Fruit

The story starts with 'Trellis'. According to the V&A, the first paper Morris designed was Trellis in 1862, a pattern suggested by the rose trellis in the garden of Red House, Morris's home in Kent. The V&A also records that 'Trellis' was the first paper designed by William Morris but the third to be issued, which is why the design date and the issue date do not line up neatly.

The V&A holds a wallpaper specimen titled 'Trellis', museum number O248458, with William Morris as primary maker. Its record lists Morris, William (designer) and Webb, Philip Speakman (designer), and gives a primary date of 11/1862 with production dates of 11/1862, 01/02/1864 and 1864. The specimen was block printed in distemper colours on paper.

The pattern itself is easy to picture. 'Trellis' shows a flowering thorned rose bush growing on a wooden trellis, with birds and flying insects. According to the V&A, the birds were designed by Philip Webb, so this first paper was already a collaboration rather than a solo work. A V&A caption credits the wallpaper as designed by William Morris and Phillip Webb, printed by Jeffrey & Co., 1862, England.

Two more early papers followed in quick succession. According to the V&A, the second paper was Daisy (1864), a simple design of naively drawn meadow flowers, and the next pattern, Fruit (1865), demonstrated the same informal naturalism of Morris's first two designs. Together the three set the tone: garden subjects, drawn plainly, arranged as repeating patterns. How such a repeat is built up on paper is covered step by step in our guide to Morris's pattern structure.

How the Papers Were Printed and Sold

Morris entered a growing trade. According to the V&A, in the early 1860s the British wallpaper market was booming, with mass-produced papers offering homeowners a cheaper alternative to textile-based wall decoration. His firm's answer was to put wallpaper into serial production early, which meant finding reliable printers and block cutters rather than printing everything in house.

The blocks came from a specialist. According to the V&A, wallpapers were printed using wood-blocks cut by a family firm, Barrett's in Bethnal Green, who dealt directly with Morris's firm in the transfer of designs. Cutting a design into a set of blocks, one for each colour, was skilled work, and the relationship between designer and block cutter shaped what a pattern could do.

Printing went to a London house with the right equipment. According to the V&A, the firm Jeffrey & Co., which specialised in high quality 'Art' wallpapers, printed them in distemper, water-based colours which gave a thick chalky effect. The V&A record for 'Vine' confirms the arrangement in practice: that wallpaper was printed by Jeffrey & Co. for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

What the records document less well is the selling side. The clearest commercial evidence in the material used here is physical: the V&A 'Trellis' specimen is inscribed on the back in ink with title, number and price. Beyond that inscription, prices, showrooms and customer pattern books are not established by the records at hand, so this page leaves them aside rather than guessing.

Morris's Principles for Wallpaper Design

Morris wrote about wallpaper design directly, and the V&A quotes him on it. The point was honesty of surface: a printed paper should behave like a printed paper, not imitate a painted one.

He gave the same advice in practical terms. Given that his own papers were hand block printed by Jeffrey & Co., the instruction was about effect rather than method: the design should own its flatness and its repeat.

The V&A's own reading of the designs matches those principles. It states that every one of Morris's wallpaper designs centres on plant-based forms, whether naturalistic, as in Acanthus or Pimpernel, or flatter and more formalised, as in Sunflower or St James's Ceiling. The museum also states that the success of the designs relies on his well-practiced and close observation of nature, and that they were always subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions.

That habit of close looking is the thread that runs from the garden at Red House into the papers of the 1870s. More on Morris and nature looks at where those plant forms came from and how he drew them.

Key Examples with Sources

The 1870s papers show the range the early designs had opened up. Each example below is a named specimen in the V&A with a museum number, so the dates and attributions can be checked against the object records. For a quicker survey across all media, the fourteen famous patterns guide lists many of the same designs in brief.

'Vine' is the earliest of the dated 1870s specimens here. The V&A holds a specimen of 'Vine' wallpaper, museum number O16974, designed by William Morris, with a primary date of 1873 and production dates of 1873 and 1874. It was hand printed in distemper colours by wood block on paper and was first issued in 1874. The design is a foliate pattern of two types of leaves and grapes.

'Wreath' and 'Sunflower' show the more formalised side of the work. The V&A holds a specimen of 'Wreath' wallpaper, museum number O248613, designed by William Morris and dated 1876; it is a foliate pattern of entwined green leaves and blue flowers. 'Sunflower' was designed by William Morris, manufactured and printed by Jeffrey & Co., in 1879 in England, and carries the museum number E.513-1919.

One design moved between media. According to the V&A, 'Marigold' (1875), a dense pattern first likely printed by Thomas Wardle, was also used by Morris for wallpaper. That crossover between textile printing and wallpaper is a reminder that the same drawing could serve several trades.

The V&A also notes that between 1875 and 1885 the firm greatly expanded its range, which fits the spread of dates in the table. The sentence in the source material is truncated, so the full detail of that expansion is not reproduced here.

What the Records Leave Uncertain

A few questions cannot be settled from the records used for this page, and it is better to say so than to fill the gaps. The list below collects the main ones.

• The printer of the earliest papers. The 'Trellis' object record describes the specimen as block printed in distemper colours on paper but names no printer, while a separate V&A caption credits Jeffrey & Co. The two records do not contradict each other, but the object record alone does not settle who printed the first papers.
• The contents of the 'Volume 1' pattern book. Which of those 25 patterns are wallpapers, and their names and dates, are not listed in the evidence used here.
• Wallpapers by later designers.
• The commercial side of selling. Beyond the inked title, number and price on the back of the 'Trellis' specimen, the records used here do not establish prices, showrooms or customer pattern books.

If you are researching the firm rather than the designs, the honest gaps matter as much as the confirmed facts. They mark where new evidence, such as a fuller object record or a dated pattern book, would change the picture.

How Wallpaper Connects to Morris's Wider Work

Wallpaper was one branch of a single design practice, and the V&A's observation that every wallpaper design centres on plant-based forms applies across Morris's output. According to the V&A, in the early 1870s Morris accepted his gift was not for figurative form but for repeat patterns, after some success with his first wallpaper designs. That acceptance is the key to reading the whole body of work.

Each branch has its own page in this cluster. Our guide to Morris's pattern structure explains how a repeat like 'Trellis' is constructed. Morris and nature follows the drawing of plant forms from gardens and hedgerows, and Morris's natural dyes covers the palette those forms were printed in. For the woven and embroidered side, see Morris textiles, and for the firm behind the papers, the collection of Morris original designs is the place to browse examples.