Morris married Jane Burden at St Michael’s Church, Ship Street, Oxford. The wedding was conducted by Morris’s friend R W Dixon with Faulkner as the best man. The bride was given away by her father. According to the account that Burne-Jones gave Mackail `M. said to Dixon beforehand”Mind you don’t call her Mary” but he did.’ Dixon mistakenly married them as `William and Mary’.
The entry in the Register reads: `William Morris, 25, Bachelor Gentleman, 13 George Street, son of William Morris decd. Gentleman. Jane Burden, minor, spinster, 65 Holywell Street, d. of Robert Burden, Groom.’ The witnesses were Jane’s parents and Faulkner.
None of Morris’s family attended the ceremony. Morris presented Jane with a plain gold ring bearing the London hallmark for 1858. She gave her husband a double-handled antique silver cup.
