ABSTRACT
It is a commonplace in biographies to stress the significance of childhood and youth as a formative period which critically determines the subject’s later actions, beliefs and intellectual development. Yet Morris’s family, and the commercial world in which it moved, is not a subject which has attracted much attention from Morris scholars, most of whom have been content to recount the ‘standard story’ as told by Mackail. Enough evidence survives, however, for an examination of his father’s career, of the business community of which he was part, and of the making of the Morris family fortune. Lacking in glamour these subjects may be, but if we fail fully to appreciate Morris’s pedigree and financial circumstances, we may also fail to understand his thoughts and actions at a number of key points in his life. Morris became acquainted with business at an early age, and over the course of his adult life he wrestled almost constantly with business problems and financial dilemmas. His personal knowledge of Victorian capitalism was one factor which makes his critique of modern industrial society so powerful and influential.
