William Morris Centenary

William Morris Centenary 1934, by Walter Ernest Spradbery (1889-1969) - Poster created for the William Morris Centenary celebrations in Walthamstow in 1934.

Colour added by the Radical Poster Collective.

Spradbery was a prolific designer, painter and poet. He designed numerous posters for the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) and Southern Railways. He was also a committed pacifist and served in the Medical Corps during the First World War. Later, he was active in CND.

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William Morris is best remembered today as a pioneering designer of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with iconic patterns like The Strawberry Thief remaining widely admired.

Hoewever, Morris was also a committed revolutionary international socialist, deeply engaged in political activism.

He joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1883 and, in 1884, became a founder member of the Socialist League.

Advocating for workers' rights, he spoke at street corners, working men’s clubs, and lecture halls, and helped organize a Defence Club alongside fellow socialists to resist police brutality.

Morris also played a key role in written socialist propaganda, editing the weekly Commonweal newspaper for six years. It was there that he serialized his best known utopian novel, News from Nowhere (1890), blending his political vision with literary creativity.