New May and William Morris Exhibition at Kelmscott Manor

Mountains and plains and adventure: William & May Morris and Iceland has opened at their Kelmscott Manor country home in Oxfordshire, coinciding with the centenary of May Morris’s first trip to Iceland. 

Victorian writer and designer William Morris was also a scholar of Icelandic and passed on his enthusiasm for the country to his daughter May Morris (1862–1938), also a designer and expert on historic embroidery. Both had a lengthy relationship with the country and were warmly welcomed by Icelanders. He visited twice (1871 and 1873), she three times over half a century later (1924, 1926 and 1931), with the life-companion of her later  years, Mary Lobb as a companion. 

Morris earned the Icelanders’ lasting affection for his cultural and financial contributions to Icelandic society. May Morris was awarded the country’s highest honour, the Order of the Falcon, in 1930. Today, William Morris is still held in high regard in Iceland but May is virtually unknown. Using the previously unknown diaries she wrote during her Icelandic travels, which were acquired by the Society of Antiquaries of London for Kelmscott Manor in 2018, the exhibition is the first to explore her relationship with Iceland. For the first time, May’s Icelandic adventures can be examined alongside her father’s better-known experiences and impressions since her observations highlight what had remained constant and what had changed in the intervening years. 

The exhibition, which runs until October 26 draws on the  Society of Antiquaries’ own collections at Burlington House and Kelmscott Manor, and include loans from the British Library, William Morris Gallery and Haslemere Educational Museum. 

In addition to the Fafnir yew hedge, the dragon-shaped topiary tribute cut by William Morris in tribute to the character from the Icelandic sags, visit highlights include:

• May Morris’s travel diaries including drawings, photographs and ephemera
• artefacts brought back from Iceland by both William and May Morris, including intricately carved items representing the traditional way of life in Iceland such as bed-boards, a drinking horn, and hand-woven textiles
• a first edition of the GuðbrandsbiblÍa Bible (1584)
• examples of William Morris’s translations of sagas, calligraphic manuscripts, and poetry responding to Iceland, including Kelmscot Press editions