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On this day 130 years ago, died the poet, artist, publisher and activist William Morris. You likely have something in your home with a Morris & Co design on it. I bet your bedroom looks like this.

Morris was odd. He was bullied at school, they called him “Crab”. He really committed to special interests. At uni it was medieval art, and he called his close mates the ‘Brotherhood’. They were artists and poets who teased him for being bourgeois and erratic. He picked up a lot of their expenses.

Morris married the most famously beautiful woman of her generation, Jane Burden. They had two daughters, but the thing about Jane was that she was passionately in love with Morris’ best mate Rossetti, who painted her over and over and over again. Everyone knew about their love affair.

Morris felt strongly about beauty, design, labour, economics and communalism. You can see it all in practice at the National Trust Red House in Bexleyheath www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/london...