furniture - Morris, William

William Morris (1834-96) was one of the key figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The firm of Morris & Co. produced various types of furniture, mostly designed in collaboration with others and had an important influence in breaking with the over-ornate, vulgar and derivative traditions of the Victorian age.

The furniture was always very well made and always with an eye to beauty and originality of design, however plagiarized and hackneyed it may have become later on. But it was furniture intended for the machine age, and as Morris himself wrote: 'It is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays'. Words that are equally as applicable today.

There are two types of chair known as a Morris chair both named after the design or influence of William Morris. The first is a reclining easy chair with upholstered seat and back and padded arms. The adjustable back fits into a series of grooves along the extended rear arms. In Australia the nearest equivalent would be the squatter's chair.

The second is a rush or cane seated cottage armchair, called a Sussex chair, usually made from ebonised or stained timber and which continued in popularity until the 1920s.