The Arts and Crafts Movement (Radio Edit)

Greg Jenner is joined in Victorian England by Dr Isabella Rosner and comedian Cariad Lloyd to learn all about the ethos, practitioners and creations of the Arts and Crafts movement. Most people have heard of William Morris, one of the leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement that came to prominence in England in the last decades of the 19th Century. His abstract, nature-inspired designs still adorn everything from wallpaper and curtains to notebooks and even dog beds. And the company he founded, Morris & Co., is still going strong. But the history of this artistic movement, and the other creatives who were involved, is less well known. Arts and Crafts, which advocated a return to traditional handicrafts like needlework, carpentry and ceramics, was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and included a strong socialist vision: its practitioners wanted everyone to have access to art, and to be able to enjoy homes that were comfortable, functional and beautiful. This episode explores Morris and other creatives both in and outside his circle, including Edward Burne-Jones, May Morris, Gertrude Jekyll and Philip Webb. It looks at the ethos that inspired them, the homes and artworks they created, and asks how radical their political beliefs really were. This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Jon Norman-Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:46Speaker 03

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• 1:51Greg Jenner?

  Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and today we are packing our William Morris bookbags and heading back to the 19th century to learn all about the Arts and Crafts Movement. And to help us spin this story, we have two practitioners of very different arts. In History Corner, she's curator of the Royal School of Needlework and a research consultant at Whitney Antiques, she's an art historian of the material culture of the 17th and 19th centuries. You might have listened to her podcast, so what? It's a pun. It's Dr Isabella Rosna, welcome Isabella.

• 2:27Speaker 05

  Thank you so much, I'm really excited to be here.

• 2:29Greg Jenner?

  We're delighted to have you here. And in Comedy Corner, she is a comedian, actor, improviser, writer and podcaster. You may know her from her podcast, Griefcast, an award-winning show, its spin-off book, You Are Not Alone, her many TV appearances, her Weirdos Book Club podcast with lovely Sarah Pascoe, or her new children's book, The Christmas Wistastrophe. And you'll definitely remember her from our episodes about Agrippina the Younger, Georgian courtship, it's the wonderful Cariad Lloyd. Welcome back Cariad.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Hello. I wanted to think of a sewing pun, but I couldn't. So, nice to meet you. Good one.

• 3:01Greg Jenner?

  You're an expert in the Regency period, that's your...

• 3:04Speaker 03

  I'm pretty good on, yeah, Georgians.

• 3:06Greg Jenner?

  No, you're very good, you're very good. But today we're in the Victorian era, and even into the early 20th century. So, what do you know of the Arts and Crafts Movement?

• 3:14Speaker 03

  I know the Arts and Crafts Movement, I love the Arts and Crafts Movement. I have been to an exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Movement when I was in Glasgow, before they had the fire at the Glasgow School of Art, I did a tour and they had an amazing exhibition there and it was incredible, like amazing chairs and tables and like proper, like the good stuff, and just the building itself. So I'm a fan, I'm a fan of the movement. Although I did, I was saying to Isabella earlier, I had a moment on the way here when I was like, oh yes, William Morris, and I thought, is it? Have I made that up? Is it William Morris? Or is he like Elizabethan? I Googled it and confirmed it was Elizabeth Morris, William Morris.

• 3:50Greg Jenner?

  He'd love to be Elizabethan.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, he would.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  He would love it.

• 3:54Greg Jenner?

  So, what do you know?

• 4:01Greg Jenner?

  This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I imagine most people will have heard of the big dog of the arts and crafts movement, William Morris. His floral designs are still printed on curtains, wallpaper, notebooks, pencil cases, even on football kits. What's more, modern homeware brands like Cath Kidsden owe a huge amount to the arts and crafts movement, and we see the design legacy in TV shows like Grand Designs and Queer Eye. But the wider history of the movement is perhaps more hidden. Beyond the cutesy curtains, what was arts and crafts really about? Why did traditional manufacturing methods have a resurgence in Victorian Britain? And what is a strawberry thief? Let's find out. Right, Dr Isabella, where do we start our story?

• 4:43Speaker 05

  I think we should start with an overview. So, the arts and crafts movement is an art movement, as you could guess, that begins sometime in the late 19th century. Nobody can agree on the exact start date. Some people put it at 1861, which is when William Morris starts getting on the scene. Other people say it doesn't really start until the 1870s or 1880. And it lasts until about the beginning of World War I. The movement is a style of art, it's primarily domestic furnishings, and it promotes craftsmanship and aesthetic unity between all sorts of objects in the home. And those would range from textiles to furniture to ceramics to metalwork and everything in between. The name itself comes from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  That's a very long name for a society, I think, but okay.

• 5:31Greg Jenner?

  Not for Victorians. They love long names.

• 5:33Speaker 05

  They loved wordiness, didn't they? So that exhibition society was founded in 1887 to exhibit decorative arts alongside fine arts. And there was one guy in it in particular, Thomas James Cobden Sanderson, speaking of long Victorian names, who first coined the term in 1887. William Morris is considered the head honcho. He's the daddy, he's the grandpumba in the situation. It's his ideas and view of the world that inspires so much of the movement.

• 6:01Greg Jenner?

  There is a quote by Morris in an 1877 lecture. Do you want to read the quote for us?

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, he says, and he's giving this lecture in December. Eighteen seventy seven to the Trades Guild of Learning. And I think he summarizes.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  What a great one. My shout out to the Trades Guild of Learning.

• 6:16Speaker 05

  The best trade guild. My favorite trades guild. He summarizes his feelings about kind of everything really well when he says, I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few or freedom for a few. He and the other arts and crafts people are really invested in handicraft and utilizing really learned skills to create beautiful, pleasant, pleasing, comfortable, useful objects.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  So is it kind of reaction to industrialization?

• 6:44Greg Jenner?

  Oh, have you read the script?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  No, I was just thinking like that. Is that where it's got like, you know, you've you've lost, you know, you have, oh, God, my brain. What's it called? Encroachment? What's the thing they do? When they get all the land of everybody.

• 6:58Greg Jenner?

  Enclosure.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  So you have enclosure.

• 7:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  And then like you get industrialization and you've lost all these skills, right? These amazing weaving skills and sewing skills. So is William Morris like harken back to good times?

• 7:10Speaker 05

  Boy, you should have been in the arts and crafts movement.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  I would love it. I love the vibe.

• 7:14Speaker 05

  It's all vibes. It's all vibes for me. But yeah, exactly. Like Victorian London, Victorian Britain, saw a huge amount of change when it came to industrialization in good and bad ways. So in terms of the population, by eighteen fifty one, the census tells us that more people live in cities than in the countryside. That's a big change. You have huge numbers of people flocking to industrial city centers. But the conditions are bad oftentimes. People are living in slum conditions, in slum housing with overcrowding and a lack of sanitation and generally just bad living situations, lots of disease. And industrialization is good for some people, for a lot of people in that it means

• 7:56Speaker 05

  that there are more affordable items available to more people, but the actual manufacturer is gnarly.

• 8:02Greg Jenner?

  We have then a movement that comes along that's reacting to the trauma of the industrial revolution. You know, it is a trauma, right?

• 8:08Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 8:08Greg Jenner?

  These artists are responding in a way that feels like they're looking for escapism. And they go hunting for escapism in the past. They're interested in Elizabethan, but it's the medieval world that they're particularly drawn to.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Medieval.

• 8:19Speaker 05

  Obsessed.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Nice hats, hats, good hats, pointy hats.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Nice hose, good old pointy shoes as well.

• 8:24Greg Jenner?

  Sure.

• 8:25Speaker 05

  So they are idealizing and dreaming about this system where objects were produced in small scale workshops rather than these large anonymous brutal factories.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  And they're looking for artisan sourdough bread.

• 8:38Speaker 05

  They literally are the cottage core folks of the late Victorian.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  They would be happy in East London now.

• 8:46Greg Jenner?

  We should probably mention Ruskin. Do you know Ruskin?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  I've heard of William Ruskin. No.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  You're just, it's all Williams to you now.

• 8:53Greg Jenner?

  Try another man's name from the period.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  George Ruskin, John Ruskin.

• 8:56Greg Jenner?

  John Ruskin, well done, there you go. Did you get there on the head?

• 8:58Speaker 03

  I've heard of him.

• 8:59Greg Jenner?

  I mean, he's, he's an extraordinary figure in the 19th century. He's slightly debated these days.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Philosopher?

• 9:03Greg Jenner?

  Everything.

• 9:04Speaker 05

  Amongst everything else.

• 9:05Greg Jenner?

  Absolutely everything. Architect, critic, painter, writer, philosopher, poet.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Oh, multi hyphenate.

• 9:09Greg Jenner?

  And he's kind of an inspiration for the arts and crafts movement.

• 9:12Speaker 05

  Definitely.

• 9:13Greg Jenner?

  Intellectual kind of figurehead.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Yes, and he thought that society would be morally better, which is a bold move already, if art, design and industry were reimagined along pre-industrial lines. He was like, let's just get rid of mechanization. We'd actually all be emotionally and morally better people. And he saw that the best, the most good period was the medieval period. And he said, for art and design to be successful and morally uplifting, an artist needed to be involved in every single step of the artistic process.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  He's like a nightmare director.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:48Greg Jenner?

  Let's move on to William Morris, who we've already, we've name checked him already. I think many people would recognize a William Morris print.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:54Greg Jenner?

  Who was William Morris? You know, where was he educated? How did he get started?

• 9:57Speaker 05

  Okay, so he was basically, as we've already discussed, the guy when it comes to the arts and crafts movement. And he's born in 1834 in Walthamstow to a wealthy, middle-class family. His dad is a broker in the city of London. His mom comes from. From a bourgeois family in Worcester, he's comfortably fancy. He was an architect, a designer, a practitioner of several self-taught crafts. He taught himself how to paint, how to make furniture, how to make tapestries. He was also a really acclaimed and talented writer, a poet, a translator. He was actually offered a largely honorary, but still very impressive professorship of poetry at Oxford, but he turned it down. Sure, we've all been there. We've all been there. You've just got too much to do. I know, I understand.

• 10:41Greg Jenner?

  Too busy. William Morris is an interesting fellow. And much like the Bloomsbury Group that we spoke about in our 100th episode, the arts and crafts movement again is a bunch of university pals going, "Hey, I'm a bit posh and fancy like you, and we are all friends and let's be pals."

• 10:55Speaker 05

  It's footlights, guys. It's pretty wholesome because he just kind of lucked into being friends with all these people, kind of. So in 1852, he goes to Oxford, he's at Exeter College, and he really soon meets Edward Burne Jones, who is another, you've heard of this guy, right? Big arts and crafts figure as well. He's a trainee architect after university. And between his time in Oxford and his time as a trainee architect, he is kind of surrounded by all these people who share his ideals and his ethos. And so Edward Burne Jones is there, and then he marries Georgiana MacDonald, Edward does. And then when they get married, Georgiana Burne Jones joins the social circle. There's also the architect Philip Webb. There's also the pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

• 11:39Speaker 05

  the embroidery artist and model Jane Burden. Jane Burden is the daughter of a stableman, and she is quote unquote "discovered" at the theatre in Oxford by Rossetti and Burne Jones. And she starts modeling for Rossetti, and then she starts modeling for Morris, and they actually end up getting married. They marry in 1859. In 1861, one of the friends, this painter named Ford Maddox Brown, suggests that, yeah, you've heard of him, right? And all these big names. He suggests that he, William Morris, Burne Jones, Webb, Rossetti, and some other folks, that they establish a design firm, and they do. And it's called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company. Doesn't roll off their tongue, does it? But then by 1875- It's Morrison Company.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 05

  And that's what we still have today. But what I love is that they simply called it The Firm.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Oh, The Firm.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  The boys are in The Firm. They were doing everything from furniture to embroideries, jewellery, carpets, woven textiles, tapestries, metal and glassware and wall hangings. Like, if you wanted it, you could get it from them.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  They were the Ikea of their day.

• 12:41Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Except it was four guys who were also socialists.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  Yes, and they had amazing skills.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and yeah, maybe they also made great meatballs. I don't know.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  You know, they were really mindful about their employees. So they actually started hiring and training as apprentices, boys from the industrial home for destitute boys on Euston Road in central London. But it wasn't just boys. I mean, women were involved in Morrison Company from the very beginning. Decorative tiles were being painted by Lucy and Kate Faulkner, who were sisters of Charles Faulkner, who was one of the other members of The Firm. And then Georgiana Burne-Jones, she was involved in the tiles as well. And like, every woman in Morris's family was involved in the embroidery.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  So his wife Jane embroidering, his sister-in-law Elizabeth or Bessie Burden embroidering, his two daughters May and Jenny embroidering. It was, it was a whole family affair. They were involved.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  His daughter's like, um, Dad, I was thinking about accountancy. No! Get your needles! Your arts and crafts! Okay, sorry.

• 13:40Speaker 05

  Luckily for him, one of them loved it.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:43Greg Jenner?

  One of them, yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  I don't know as much about Jenny, because she had epilepsy, so she was just, you know, she was ill a lot of the time. But May Morris, she was a keen embroidery bean.

• 13:54Greg Jenner?

  Amazing. Carrie, we're used to artists being useless at, you know, the basic.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Falling apart and some money men having to come in and be like, we'll sort it out, you idiots.

• 14:02Greg Jenner?

  No, this, this goes really well. They expand into bigger premises in, near Wimbledon?

• 14:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, Merton Abbey.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's in 1881.

• 14:10Greg Jenner?

  I'm going to be an agent provocateur here, Isabella, because as a historian, I'm going to have to say, one of the reasons the company flourishes is because of the Industrial Revolution.

• 14:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:21Greg Jenner?

  Right?

• 14:21Speaker 05

  Oh, good point.

• 14:22Greg Jenner?

  I mean, come on, I mean, they're rejecting it.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Put that in your tapestry and we give Morris.

• 14:27Greg Jenner?

  I know I'm being annoying, but we have to be, we have to be true about it. The Industrial Revolution creates a middle class.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  It creates wealth that you You can have a house that you want a tapestry for.

• 14:34Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 14:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're reacting against it and they're also benefiting from it. Because by the 1860s and 70s, there is a lot more wealth than there was before. So by one estimate, the average income per head of household doubles between 1850 and 1900. And the middle class triples in size. So yeah, more people with more money meant that there was more interest in buying more objects. They have really, I think, very admirable ideas and goals. But their process, this movement is not helping or affecting the people who are most hurt by the terrible working conditions of Victorian England. Yeah.

• 15:12Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, and that's always the case, right? You can have grand lofty ambitions, but the economics are always going to underpin, does this work or not? There's another artist we should mention actually, because she's slightly different in that she went outside. Gertrude Gekel.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Gertrude Gekel.

• 15:24Greg Jenner?

  Who did interior, but she also did gardens.

• 15:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, she's most well known for her garden design. But she also was doing all sorts of interiors, including designing embroidery and doing the embroidery herself. And she had a great name, Gertrude Gekel.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  It's a great name.

• 15:40Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, I mean, there's quite a lot of good names in this episode.

• 15:42Speaker 05

  But she really encapsulates this arts and crafts interest in blending together outdoor space and indoor space.

• 15:48Greg Jenner?

  What's interesting about Morris, he's obviously self-taught, as we've heard, all these things he's picking up. He's also getting other people to teach themselves, he's inspiring others. We know of an artist called William de Morgan. He teaches himself ceramics. He has a minor mishap.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Just a little one.

• 16:03Greg Jenner?

  Do you want to guess what happens?

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Does he blow up a kiln?

• 16:05Greg Jenner?

  Yes, he does.

• 16:06Speaker 05

  It's every ceramicist's nightmare. But not even just the kiln, like his whole workshop.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 16:11Greg Jenner?

  It's like his house is on fire.

• 16:13Speaker 05

  He lives though, he survives and then he just moves. He's like, see ya. He moves to Cheney Walk, very fancy, love that for him. And he then actually has success with his various experimentations. And he becomes renowned for his stained glass windows and his tiles with Islamic decoration and his furniture. William Morris had created a world where other craftsmen were all working together to furnish big houses and churches.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  He's the Beyonce of the arts and crafts movement. If he does a country album, everybody thinks, hey, maybe we can all add this influence to our genre.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, beautifully said. He is the Beyonce. I think he would love to know that he is the Beyonce.

• 16:53Greg Jenner?

  The thing that I find quite interesting is the arts and crafts ethos moves beyond Morris's control. You see that in music, you see that in comedy.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  You start a cult, you can't keep hold of it, before you know it, they're starting their own cult.

• 17:04Greg Jenner?

  But we get a sense of the arts and crafts movement out of England, into Scotland, into Wales, into Ireland, maybe internationally, I don't know.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, there is, the movement goes across the Atlantic and hits the US as well, via things like journals and lectures from people who are in the movement. It was going to the US after World War One, it was going to Japan, it had implicated, it kind of had ripples everywhere. And it brought up all of this desire to preserve handicrafts generally. So there were all of these movements within Britain that were founded in this period to keep craftsmanship alive. There was the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887. There was the Art Workers Guild in 1884, and they were a debating society where people just sat and debated about the principles of art and design.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Yes, please.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  Very hardcore.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Mm, I'm there, sign me up.

• 17:55Speaker 05

  I would not be there because the debate makes me stressed, because I hate confrontation. But you can go for me, you can tell me about it after. There was the Fine Needlework Association, which was an organisation founded around the same time, to give employment to...

• 18:07Speaker 03

  I really hope the Fine Needlework Association and what was the other one you said, the aesthetics, like, met on the street, and it was like, da-da, da-da, with their, like, needles, the other side's got, like, knitting needles, and it's like...

• 18:18Speaker 05

  There were so many, like, embroidery societies, there was, like, the Royal Embroidery Society, there was the Royal School of Needlework, like, it's, there's the Fine Needlework Association, but these people are...

• 18:27Speaker 03

  I mean, I like the Fine Needlework Association, but they're no Royal Needlework Association, like, their work is fine.

• 18:32Greg Jenner?

  There's also another amazing, we've had some amazing names. We've already had Thomas Cobton Sanderson, who gave us the phrase arts and crafts movement. But now I have to present to you Miss Eglantine Jebb.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  Seems like a name you got in, like, a name generator.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  I think, you know what, why are there no Eglatines anymore?

• 18:49Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Bring that, bring us, bring back Eggie.

• 18:51Greg Jenner?

  So Mrs. Eglantine Jebb is the...

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Eggie Jebb.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  Oh, Eggie Jebb, I love Eggie Jebb.

• 18:56Greg Jenner?

  She sets up the Home Arts and Industries Association.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  And they're doing, like, largely great stuff as well. So they're also set, like, with that, the Home Arts and Industries Association, they are setting up handicraft classes in cities and villages, they're supporting local schools, they're... alleviating seasonal unemploy-ness, un- unemployment, nice word that I just made up, unemployment, and they're basically trying to keep people out of the pub.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  So largely admirable, slightly in-your-face moralistic vibes going on.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  In the Victorian times, was there anyone not having a moral in-your-face vibe?

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, so that's very well said because all of these organizations are basically founded for two reasons. One of them is this Victorian philanthropy, so they're trying to help the poor, they're trying to help the underserved in a moralistic way, and then they're also trying to preserve these handicraft skills that they're scared industrialization will destroy.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:50Greg Jenner?

  So we get the kind of the broadening out of the movement, the ethos beyond the arts and crafts movement of William Morris's control. It gets into Edinburgh Social Union in 1885, it's in Ireland, about the 1890s, you know, it's really gone beyond his control, but in a good way, right? It's not, you know, he's not trying to hold it.

• 20:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's kind of morphed into its own thing.

• 20:08Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, which is amazing. There's one question I suppose we should address is that although there's the sort of democratic element of recruiting the boys from the school for the destitute and trying to bring women in, all of the artists we've met so far.

• 20:21Speaker 05

  Amen.

• 20:22Greg Jenner?

  Well, no, we've had good, but I'd say they're of a certain class.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll get into the women in a second.

• 20:28Greg Jenner?

  They shop at Waitrose, I think.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  It's very white male, middle class.

• 20:31Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, a little bit. So I'm just, I'm wondering if they walked the walk as well as talking the talk when it came to genuinely changing who could be an artist and who could buy this stuff. Is it middle-class people for middle-class people?

• 20:43Speaker 05

  I think they walked the walk as well as they could, and it did end up being middle-class people making stuff for middle-class people, simply because of what was feasible and what was, what the logistics were, but I think they wanted something bigger. It did have a radical philosophy, philosophy that wanted to change the landscape of industrial production and make art available to the masses. But when it comes down to it, craftsmanship, this really high-quality handicraft that they were advocating for, it takes time and therefore it takes money. So not everybody could afford that finely crafted stuff. And yes, you're right, the practitioners, the people involved were usually from the middle class. But yeah, the movement did not buy. By and large, changed the lives of people who really needed their lives changed in Victorian England.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  I think the movement had really good ideas, but the world of capitalism in which they found themselves meant that they couldn't really free themselves from that system.

• 21:35Greg Jenner?

  So a heart in the right place, I think, Carrie Ed.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it depends how much you make of your ethos being like, this is for, this is for everyone, guys. So I agree with you. They're, they're born and working in a system which will not allow them to be free. But it's interesting that that's also what they marketed themselves. It's classic gentrification as well, isn't it? Like we're saying, like, they move into an area that is destitute and has been ignored. They live there cheaply and then they destroy the area for people who've lived there for generations because it becomes a cool area where the artists are and then the house prices go up and then like no one can afford to live there anymore.

• 22:08Greg Jenner?

  And women in the movement, were they given equal weighting? Were they given equal respect, stature? I mean, we've heard lots of, of names, but they're often the wives of or daughters of famous men.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say sometimes this was an opportunity for women to be more present than in other art movements, for sure. So if I talked about all of the women, I would be here all day, but I'll give you some quick names. There was the stained glass designer Mary Lounds, there was the metal worker Charlotte Newman, painter and enameller Edith B. Dawson, Aunt May Morris, she was not only an embroiderer, but she was a textile historian and a designer. And she actually took over the management of Morris and Company's embroidery department when she was 23.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 22:48Speaker 05

  Iconic, but sexism was definitely still present. So the membership to the Art Workers Guild was only open to men. There had not been a female member of the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1922. So that's all of the years of the Arts and Crafts Movement. And May Morris and people like her were pretty sick of all of that. So in 1907, she founded the Women's Guild of Arts. I should say that generally, This art movement and the fact that it puts craft on the same level as art means that there is more room for women because it's oftentimes women who are doing those crafts. Women were exhibiting and designing alongside men and there are some interesting connections between this movement and the British fight for women's suffrage, which is pretty cool.

• 23:30Speaker 05

  And then there are also some like fun little moments of gender equality. Gender equality is a little treat. So like Thomas James Cobden Sanderson, our boy who comes up with the name, he and his wife actually end up sharing their surname. They like do the equal thing of making a joint surname Cobden Sanderson. And it's like these, I don't know, a little rare act glimpse into how some people in this movement viewed the gender divide and how things should actually be.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Wow. Okay, this is positive. They can stay.

• 23:59Greg Jenner?

  How does the arts and crafts movement finish? I mean, do people just go, that's enough. Thank you.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Time to tidy up, guys. Look at this mess. Come on.

• 24:08Greg Jenner?

  I've invented acrylic plastics.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  We need to eat on this table.

• 24:11Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, yeah. So.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  I mean, nothing changes things like war, I would say. So World War I comes in and the aesthetic changes massively. People don't have the need or desire for any of these, any of this fine craftsmanship anymore. The war comes and all of a sudden it's modernism.

• 24:25Greg Jenner?

  And deco and.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  And deco and like what comes after it. So while the arts and crafts movement technically ends at World War I here in Britain, it does have ripples in other places. And even though, yeah, the movement is definitely over, we are still in a world where we are kind of constantly seeing arts and crafts images. So is it really over?

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Is it? No, I don't think it is. I think we still, as we've just said, it's very apt for modern life.

• 24:50Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  It fits.

• 24:51Greg Jenner?

  It's back in fashion. Maybe it never left.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:54Greg Jenner?

  Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  Maybe it's the friends we made along the way.

• 24:58Speaker 06

  The nuance window.

• 25:05Greg Jenner?

  Time now for the nuance window. This is where Carrie Ad and I recline in our drawing room with our embroidery samplers, while Dr. Isabella has two minutes to tell us something we need to know about the arts and crafts movement that we haven't heard already. So, my stopwatch is ready. Take it away.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  Really? Your stopwatch? I'm scared. Okay. If you ever see a William Morris design, whether it be on wallpaper, an advent calendar, or a fridge magnet, chances are it's probably Morris's work called Strawberry Thief. Not only is it Morris's most beloved pattern, it's also one of the most popular textile designs ever. It's inspired everything from a novel to a video game. You can find Strawberry Thief-covered products on the shelves of John Lewis, Waitrose, M&S, Waterstones, and even Pets at Home, truly fulfilling Morris's desire to make his art accessible. With Strawberry Thief, Morris captures the thrushes that he caught stealing fruit in his garden at Kelmscott Manor. Amidst multicolored flowers, scrolling vines, and frilly leaves are pairs of birds. Those with yellow and pink wings have their mouths agape.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  Are they shocked that they've been caught mid-tweet or mid-munch? The birds with blue wings are the thieves in question, looking very satisfied with plump strawberries hanging from their beaks. Morris felt that everyone should have access to beautiful surroundings, rest, and work that inspires satisfaction and pride. And he was deliberate about what sorts of products should be made from each of his designs. In its original form back in 1883, Strawberry Thief was a printed cotton furnishing textile intended to be used for curtains, walls, or loose covers on furniture. Morris printed it using the indigo discharge method, a many centuries-old technique primarily used in Asia that took an especially long time to produce. Because of this, Strawberry Thief was one of the most expensive printed furnishings available from Morris and Company. But the price didn't stop those little strawberry-stealing birds from becoming one of Morris's most

• 26:48Speaker 05

  commercially-successful patterns. Clearly, the commercial success of Strawberry Thief lives on. A hundred and forty-ish years after the textile was produced, some things are different, though. That pattern isn't limited to furnishing fabrics, and it isn't expensive. This is the case for other arts and crafts movement designs, too. William Morris did intend his work to be widely available, but he was also strategic and specific about how and on what objects his designs should be used. The aesthetics of the arts and crafts movement are more accessible to us now than ever before, and I wonder what those artists and makers would think about the ubiquity of their designs, adorning everything from dog beds to forks.

• 27:24Greg Jenner?

  Beautiful. Look at that. Look at that. Two minutes and two seconds.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  Sweaty. I'm sweaty now. Wow.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  It is so ubiquitous. Everywhere. That it's almost gone back round to being like a bit passe, dare I say? Strawberry thief, like, because it's on notebooks and pens and every gift shop

• 27:41Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  in every National Trust property in the country has all the strawberry thief you can desire. That would be my slightly snobby opinion.

• 27:49Greg Jenner?

  Ironically, it's back to mass production again, isn't it?

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:51Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, it's the sort of memification of the craft.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but to be fair to it, Morris, it is a banging pattern.

• 27:57Greg Jenner?

  It's a good.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  So good. And the first time, I think, you realise what it is, because I think we've all seen it. And do you know what I mean? And then I went first time, I was like, oh, I see, that's his, like, he designed that. That's a thing, like, rather than like, it's just a, like, who, you know, a pattern you see every day. I think you do go, oh, that is a really good pattern. There is a reason it's so successful. It's so charming, isn't it? Yeah, it is still, still very charming. Beautiful.

• 28:20Greg Jenner?

  Listener, if after today's episode, you want more Cariad Lloyd in your life, you can check our episodes on Mary Wollstonecraft. Well, Craft, Arts and.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Arts and Wollstonecraft, yeah, baby.

• 28:29Greg Jenner?

  Got there in the end, sorry. And if you want to hear more about British artistic movements, why not listen to our 100th episode on the Bloomsbury Group? And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In history corner, we had the incredible Dr Isabella Rosner from the Royal School of Needlework. Thank you, Isabella.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me. I've had the best time.

• 28:53Greg Jenner?

  And in comedy corner, we had the cracking Cariad Lloyd. Thank you, Cariad.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  My arts and crafts are now fulfilled. Thank you.

• 29:01Greg Jenner?

  And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we reupholster another neglected historical subject. But for now, I'm off to go and teach myself ceramics and maybe blow up my house. Bye.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And this is the Infinite Monkey Hedgerow.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  He just, he was unable to write a funny joke for the introduction. That's the reason of the book.

• 29:26Speaker 02

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• 29:29Speaker 06

  Science with funny bits.

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  Science with bits.

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  Funny science plus bits. So the reason that the Neanderthals died out, you're claiming, is because they weren't astronomers. Is that?

• 29:42Greg Jenner?

  Yes, exactly. That's why. This is how we investigate cybercrime. We look for the yachts.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.

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  And its production is an extraordinary story in itself. Ronald Reagan had been named as the potential lead. Join me, Mischa Glenning, and three expert guests for a special live edition of In Our Time, where we discuss Casablanca. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.