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

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.

Learn how to make at least four different brushes using arenga, tampico and broomcorn fibres. You can experiment with using different colours of hemp and nylon cord for binding and will be shown how to tie different styles of brush.

Learn how to make one cobweb broom using broomcorn fibre. A selection of wooden broomsticks and a variety of colours of nylon thread will be provided for you to choose from.

Wendy's talk will focus on developments in wallpaper design and production during the nineteenth century and will consider what the Cowtan order books tell us about how people were decorating their homes, including the use of wallpapers by William Morris and his contemporaries in the broader context of the nineteenth century interior.

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.

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.

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.