Visit our riverside museum, library, and archive to help us perpetuate the life and work of William Morris

Our museum is open Thursday, Saturday, & Sunday from 2-5pm. ‘The Art of Wallpaper: Morris & Co. in Context’ exhibition is on until 11th August, 2024.

Please note there is a £3.50 entry fee to the museum.

William Morris Image

Craftsman, designer, poet, printer, socialist, novelist, environmentalist

William Morris was a revolutionary force in Victorian Britain. His work dramatically changed the fashions and ideologies of the era and he remains as influential and important today as he was in his own time.

The William Morris Society was founded in 1955 to share knowledge of the life and works of William Morris amongst our members and the wider public.

The Society is based in the Coach House of Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, Morris’s London home for the last eighteen years of his life and where there is now a charming museum and event space

What’s On

The Society has an exciting variety of exhibitions, talks and events, both online and at Kelmscott House throughout the year.

  • Bird

    May 31, 2024

    10:30 am

    12:30 pm

    Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, W6 9TA

    Let's make paper flowers and bird brooches! Join us for two workshops for children aged 6-12 years old. In the first part, create beautiful paper flowers. After a snack break, be inspired by William Morris's 'Bird' design to make your own bird brooches.

  • June 26, 2024

    6:00 pm

    7:00 pm

    Online

    Morris was a man of prolific talents but it is probably as a designer of repeating patterns, and in particular, wallpapers, that he is best remembered today. A one-man pattern-making phenomenon and a master of colour, he created over 50 wallpapers, which also became to most commercially successful work produced by his firm Morris & Co.

  • Socialist League Flyer

    July 3, 2024

    6:00 pm

    7:00 pm

    Kelmscott House Coach House, 26 Upper Mall, W6 9TA & Online

    Florence Boos will trace Morris's evolving interests as he attempted to visualise a future socialist society, advocate for socialist unity and 'one socialist party', and most urgently, in the years directly before his death, to convey prophetic warnings for the future.

  • C7

    July 24, 2024

    11:00 am

    12:00 pm

    Online

    The Society holds a stunning collection of ceramics, including William Morris tiles and William De Morgan bowls. This talk will draw on these examples to emphasise the skill involved in producing these beautiful works of art.

  • Download

    June 6, 2024

    7:00 pm

    8:00 pm

    Online

    There were, and remain, many unanswered questions about the nature of Morris's unconventional marriage with his wife Jane. Why did Morris take out a joint tenancy on his Kelmscott Manor country home with Rossetti when he knew how fond Rossetti was of his wife? Why did Jane eventually distance herself from Rossetti and what made Read More

  • Kelmscott Manor News From Nowhere

    September 18, 2024

    6:00 pm

    7:00 pm

    Kelmscott House Coach House, 26 Upper Mall, W6 9TA and Online

    William Morris fished many rivers during his long, impassioned career as an angler, but none of them meant as much to him as the Thames - 'our only English river', as his utopia News from Nowhere describes it. This hybrid talk will evoke the variety and excitement of Morris's angling ventures on the lower and Read More

  • 19

    November 20, 2024

    6:00 pm

    7:00 pm

    Online

    From about 1868 to his death in 1893, Frederick Garrard made a range of tiles at the Millwall Pottery in London, in early Dutch polychrome delftware style as well as reproductions of early Spanish cuenca tiles and some medieval line impressed tiles. Recently, a few of his tiles have come to light revealing designs based Read More

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Become a Member

Join us and receive regular copies of our Magazine and The Journal of William Morris Studies plus discounts on events and in the museum shop.

Venue Hire

William Morris’ residence provides a wonderful backgrop for meetings and small gatherings.  The Coach House and The Library are both available for hire.

William Morris Society Gallery (8)
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Stay up-to-date

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    Latest News

    All the latest news from the Society. To keep up to date with all the latest events and goings on, please sign-up to receive our regular email

    • Kelmscott
      Published On: June 8th, 2024

      The William Morris Society is participating in London Open Gardens for another year, to welcome our visitors and members to the rarely opened gardens of Kelmscott House. On 9th June from 12-5pm the Society will open their walled garden, which will lead onto the private garden of the Kelmscott House tenants. Cream teas, scones, and Read More

    • Socialist League Flyer
      Published On: April 28th, 2024

      Please join us on 3rd July in the Coach House of Kelmscott House to see Florence Boos talk about William Morris's lesser known period of Socialism as an elder statesman of socialism from the time of his eviction from the Socialist League until his death in 1896. Fewer of Morris's writings from this later period Read More