William Morris lived at Red House with his wife, Janey, from the summer of 1860 until November 1865. During that time he saw many transformations in his life. He became a father to his two children, Jenny and May; he was involved with his friends in the setting up of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company (later to become Morris and Co. and more usually known to his circle as 'The Firm'); and he developed from a young man of 25 with a vision and a growing reputation as a poet, but little direction, into an established decorative artist and businessman. During that time he mixed in London's artistic circles, and Red House became a focal point for the social and artistic activities of a number of famous - or soon to be famous - individuals. These included the architect of the house, Philip Webb; Morris's Oxford friends Ned Jones (better known as Edward Burne-Jones), Charlie Faulkner, and Peter Paul Marshall; Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, from an earlier generation of Pre-Raphaelites; as well as other members of London's artistic circles such as the poet Swinburne. Together with their wives and children, they formed an intense network of work and play. This web site looks at the way in which Red House was formed and developed by this group of people and also at how the house formed what they did and what they became.
