Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co was the decorating firm founded in London in 1861 by William Morris and a group of friends, among them the artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, the architect Philip Webb, the engineer and surveyor Peter Paul Marshall and the mathematician Charles Faulkner. Describing themselves as fine art workmen, the partners set out to produce well-designed, handmade furnishings at a time when much commercial work was crude and over-ornamented.
The firm's early output included stained glass, painted and carved furniture, embroideries, tiles, metalwork and table glass, and it attracted attention at the International Exhibition of 1862. Stained glass windows for churches formed a major part of its business, and its first wallpapers, including Trellis and Daisy, were issued in the 1860s. In 1875 the partnership was dissolved and reorganised under Morris's sole control as Morris & Co., which continued into the twentieth century. Work from the original partnership period is rare and of great historical importance, so firm attribution through archives, exhibition records or documented commissions is significant. The firm's ideals laid the foundations for the Arts and Crafts Movement and remain hugely influential in British interiors.
