Friday Evening Welcome Reception

6:00pm – 9:00m I Birmingham & Midland Institute

Begin the weekend with a special reception celebrating the launch of the first MorrisFest.

The evening will feature Society President Sir Tristram Hunt, who will deliver Imperial Disgrace: William Morris and the Iniquity of Empire, followed by a Q&A.

Society Chair, Ian Wall and Director, Gabriella Esser will also welcome guests and announce the finalists and judges for the Useful & Beautiful Art Prize

A welcome drink will be available.

Hand Block Printed Wallpaper with Marthe Armitage *DROP IN*

10:30am – 4:00pm I The Ryland Room

An explanation and demonstration of aspects of Marthe Armitage’s design process, showing how the repeat patterns are created and printed using Marthe’s original hand carved Lino blocks.

Indian Woodblock Printing with Neera Sehgal *DROP IN*

11:00am – 4:00pm I The George Dawson Room

Throughout Saturday, drop in an join Neera to learn the art of Indian woodblock printing. Learn about the history of this ancient form of printmaking, its journey through Asia and into Europe.

Heritage Jacquard Silk Weaving with Fishbone and Sycamore

10:15am – 11:00am I The John Peek Room

A talk detailing the intricate craft of heritage Jacquard silk handloom weaving, and the experience of brightening Paradise Mill with new designs and stories.

Alice Dodds: What May Come, However Strange’: Utopianism in May Morris’ Embroideries

10:15am – 11:00am I The Cadbury Room

While William Morris holds a central position in histories of English utopian thought, May Morris has rarely — if ever — been considered a utopian thinker. Art historian, Alice Dodds, discusses how her research has uncovered a significant and sustained utopian thread through May Morris’ work, revealing strange new futures in Morris’ lush embroidered worlds.

John Blewitt: Morris on the Stump

11:00am – 12:00pm I The John Peek Room

John’s talk will explore Morris’s socialist activism in Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford. What he said, how he was received, why he did it, and what impact he had.

Morris Dancing with Nicola Jarvis

11:00am – 12:00pm I The Cadbury Room

An illustrated presentation showing how the design practice of William and May Morris have influenced her art-making.

Orla Kiely: A Life in Pattern in conversation

12:00pm – 1:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Orla Kiely reflects on her career, creative journey, and her retrospective exhibition, A Life in Pattern, joined by Dennis Nothdruft, Head of Exhibitions at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.

Suzanne Fagence Cooper: A Crafted Life: how William Morris makes things better

1:00pm – 2:00pm I The John Peek Room

William Morris’s multiplicity – as designer, poet, friend and activist – makes him hard to grasp. Yet many of his concerns still resonate. He encourages us toward a more fruitful life. Morris gives us hope. Provocative and enlightening, this lecture illuminates Morris’s ways of thinking. It also offers practical wisdom for cultivating meaning, beauty and authenticity in our own lives today.

Frieda Gormley, Co-Founder of House of Hackney, discusses her new book ‘In the Company of Nature: Regenerating Business, Community and the Living World‘.

1:00pm – 2:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

‘In the Company of Nature‘ is the story of British luxury interiors brand House of Hackney’s regenerative journey to put Nature and Future Generations at the heart of their business. Much like Morris they champion creativity with purpose, integrity in action, and compassion for people and planet means working with Nature as their partner.

Max Donnelly Curator at the V&A: Morris and his reach and legacy in the Far East

2:00pm – 3:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

More details to come.

Annette Carruthers: Morris in Fashion

2:00pm – 3:00pm I The John Peek Room

An illustrated talk about fashion in the artistic circles around Morris, and contemporary and later uses of Morris patterns in dress including two fine examples from Birmingham.

Freddie Yauner in conversation with Michael Robertson

3:00pm – 4:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Join biographer Michael Robertson in a conversation with artist Freddie Yauner about his Morris-inspired art and activism. Every March (William Morris’s birth month), Yauner grows a beard, dons Victorian garb, and creates public art projects that pay tribute to Morris and demonstrate how his radical social vision can be applied in contemporary life.

David Mabb: Morris Kitsch Now

3:00pm – 4:00pm I The John Peek Room

David is an artist who will deliver an illustrated talk exploring the inherent contradictions of inexpensive, mass-produced objects adorned with reproductions of Morris’s patterns, which he refers to as Morris Kitsch.

Jeremy Deller: William Morris was right

4:00pm – 5:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Jeremy is an artist who has a keen interest in Morris and curated a show about him in 2014. In this talk he will discuss how Morris was right.

Kelmscott Lecture with Professor Michael Robertson

6:00pm – 8:00pm I The Lyttelton Theatre

This year’s lecture, ‘Morris in Our Moment’, will be delivered by Professor Michael Robertson, whose biography of William Morris is forthcoming from Thames & Hudson.

While Morris’s designs have never been more popular, his revolutionary thinking about art, work, society and the environment can sometimes be overlooked. Professor Robertson will consider why Morris’s ideas have renewed urgency today — from the search for meaning and pleasure in work to technological change, inequality and the climate crisis.

Sunday 22nd November

Hand Block Printed Wallpaper with Marthe Armitage *DROP IN*

10:30am – 3:00pm I The Ryland Room

An explanation and demonstration of aspects of Marthe Armitage’s design process, showing how the repeat patterns are created and printed using Marthe’s original hand carved Lino blocks.

Dr Lynn Hulse: ‘William Morris’s pupil’: Susan (Lily) Yeats, Embroidery and the Arts and Crafts Legacy in Ireland

10:00am – 11:00am I The Charles Dickens Hall

Lynn is a trustee of the William Morris Society and has published widely on historic needlework and is the editor of The Needles Excellency: English raised embroidery (2108) and May Morris: Art and Life (2017).

Lucy Day performs William Morris’s “The Message of the March Wind”

11:00am – 12:00pm I The John Peek Room

This is a musical version of William Morris’s ‘The Pilgrims of Hope’, arranged and sung by Lucy Day. The performance will be interspersed with Lucy speaking about the poem, Morris’s views on art and work, and how her creative process embodied these views.

‘Threads of May‘ performed by Isabella Javor

12:00pm – 1:00pm I The John Peek Room

Isabella is a solo actor-musician performing a play using live music and storytelling to weave together the intricate life of May Morris. The play follows threads from her bohemian pre-raphaelite childhood, maintaining her father’s legacy managing the embroidery department of Morris & Co

In conversation with Chloe Chia & John Blewitt: Colonising the coloniser with ‘Imperial Fruit Thieves’: a postcolonial subversion of William Morris’ Strawberry Thief

12:00pm – 1:00pm I The George Dawson Room

Artist Chloe Chia reworks Morris’s Strawberry Thief with birds and plants from territories the British Empire colonised, using patterns to uncover patterns of colonial extraction and exploitation. This talk tells the story of how Imperial Fruit Thieves began: a public-domain Morris pattern built on borrowed Asian textile traditions, and an empire whose wealth funded his patrons.

The Economy of Human Flourishing with Dr Max Coates

12:30pm – 1:30pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Dr Coates is a researcher and writer working at the intersection of political economy, ecological thought and design history. This talk considers Morris’s contemporary relevance while also challenging what he regards as the selective appropriation of his work by some parts of the environmental movement.

Mr Morris Goes North: Painting and Politics with John Stirling

1:00pm – 2:00pm I The John Peek Room

William Morris had important northern connections with friends such as George Howard (Carlisle) and Lothian Bell (Rounton Grange) and he also brought his socialist message to audiences at the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, and to striking miners at an Easter Monday fair on the river Tyne. This talk will draw together those threads (and others) to develop our understanding of the multi-dimensional Morris.

Duncan McCallum, Chair of SPAB: Morris, the tireless conservation campaigner as the key player in The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

1:30pm – 2:00pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Morris didn’t just believe in good causes, he put pen to paper and actively campaigned for the things he believed in. This short illustrated talk will highlight a number of early building conservation cases that Morris was involved in.

Andy Foster from The Victorian Society

2:00pm – 3:00pm I The John Peek Room

Andy is a building historian and former city councillor. He has been a member of Birmingham’s Conservation and Heritage Panel and its predecessors since 1993, representing the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), and also represents the conservation societies on Lichfield (Church of England) Dicoesan Advisory Committee.

New research on the Arts and Crafts movement: A conversation with Thomas Cooper and Imogen Hart

2:30pm – 3:30pm I The Charles Dickens Hall

Join Thomas Cooper (Lincoln College, Oxford) and Imogen Hart (Oxford Brookes University) for a conversation about their new book Critical Histories of the Arts and Crafts Movement (Manchester University Press, October 2026).