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The William Morris Internet Archive : Biographies

"it is Morris... who can properly be called the first English Marxist" - A. L. Morton, Political Writings of William Morris.

Raw materials

• Morris's own brief autobiography (1883)
• The MIA version of Nick Salmon's "Chronology of William Morris".

Biographies by Morris's comrades and colleagues

• The only 'authorised' biography was written by J.W. Mackail, son-in-law of Edward Burne-Jones, who was given access to Morris's papers by his family after his death.
  1. J.W. Mackail, William Morris, Vol. 1 (1899)
  2. J.W. Mackail, William Morris, Vol. 2 (1899)
• Mackail also gave a number of talks about different aspects of Morris's life and socialism:
  1. William Morris, an address delivered to the Hammersmith Socialist Society, November 1900
  2. William Morris, a talk given to the ILP City branch, January 1901
  3. The Parting of the Ways, an address to the William Morris Labour Church at Leek, October 1902
  4. William Morris and his Circle, a lecture given at Oxford, August 1907
  5. Socialism and Politics: an Address and a Programmer, a talk given to the ILP Metropolitan Council, February 1902
• Andreas Scheu, Morris's comrade in the Democratic Federation, Social Democratic Federation, and Socialist League, later wrote an autobiography which included his memories of Morris [to come].
• Bruce Glasier, militant in the Glasgow branch of the Socialist League and later leading figure in the ILP, wrote a biography: William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement
• Walter Crane, campaigning artistic colleague of Morris, gave an address entitled William Morris and his Work to the Art Worker's Guild, later published in the collection William Morris to Whistler.
• Halliday Sparling, Morris's son-in-law, former militant in the Socialist League and later Fabian, published The Kelmscott Press and William Morris in 1924

The Arts and Crafts movement

Many short biographies by those involved with the Fabians, Guild Socialism, and the Arts and Crafts movements were published in the decades after Morris's death. Two examples are:

• Elbert Hubbard: A William Morris Book, 1907 (including letters from William Morris to Robert Thomson)
• Emily Townsend, Fabian and suffragette, wrote Fabian Tract No. 167, William Morris and the Communist Ideal.

The Communist Historians

From the 1930s there was an attempt to reclaim Morris from the Social-democratic and Fabian traditions for Communism, begun by Robin Page Arnot. This work was taken up by the (dissident) Communit Party Historians Group, in particular E.P. Thompson.

• Robin Page Arnot:
  1. Morris versus the Morris myth (1934)
  2. William Morris: a Vindication (1934)
  3. William Morris: The Man and the Myth (1964)
• E.P. Thompson:
  1. William Morris: from Romantic to Revolutionary, 1955
  2. Talk on William Morris, 1959
• However, Morris continues to be claimed by all schools; for example Terry Liddle's anarchist view of The heritage of William Morris

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