The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

The 1952 Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum: A Personal RecollectionAuthor(s): Barbara MorrisSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, No. 25, Decorative Art:Exhibitions and Celebrations (2001), pp. 11-24Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809310 .

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The 1952 Exhibition of

Victorian and Edwardian

Decorative Arts at the

Victoria and Albert

Museum: A Personal

Recollection.

Barbara Morris

The initiator of the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition, Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, in 1952 was the late Peter Floud (1911-60), (fig. 1) the charismatic keeper of the Department of Circulation. Educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Wadham College Oxford and the London School of Economics, he joined the museum as Assistant Keeper of Circulation in 1935, a post he held until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. After war service with the Ministry of Home Security, and with UNRRA, he returned to the museum as Keeper in 1947 and immediately set about the transformation of the department.

In 1853, one year after the establishment of the South Kensington Museum (as theV&A was called until 1899) at Marlborough H ouse, the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for the Board of Trade proposed that objects should be lent to the provinces,

Fig. 1 . Peter Floud, left, and James Lever looking at a print. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

and local art schools be given the opportunity of purchasing duplicate or surplus objects. Two years later, in 1855, the growth of the Museums collections enabled the setting up of the Circulating Museum which was housed in a specially constructed wagon which travelled the country by rail. The extent of the loans to the provinces increased throughout the second half of the century but it was not until 1909 that the Department of Circulation was formally set up with each of the museum's departments instructed to transfer part of their collections to the Circulation Department, which was also given a separate purchase grant.1 As Walter Crane pointed out in his foreword to the catalogue of the 9th Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1910, it was only the Circulation Department that bought the works of living artists, craftsmen and designers, a practice that continued largely to supply the needs of the regional schools of art.

Although the Circulation Department had a more progressive attitude towards contemporary design than the rest of the museum departments, it was seen merely as the means of sending loans to the provinces, and it had no scholarly reputation. Peter Floud was determined that this should change and decided that he and his staff would become experts in the decorative arts of the 19th and 20th century, a field studiously ignored or derided by the majority of the museum staff, who considered that anything produced after the Regency period was beyond the pale.

Before the war, loans had consisted mainly of individual objects or groups of objects in single cases, but Peter Floud decided to introduce the loan of complete exhibitions of both cased and framed objects, researched and designed in the department, which would be transported and set up by the museum's own packers. This system began in 1949. Not content with organising these complete, but relatively small scale exhibitions, Peter Flood conceived of the idea of major exhibitions within the museum itself, researched and set up by the Circulation Department. The first of these was the 1952 Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, which celebrated the centenary of the museum and is now universally regarded as a major turning point in the Victorian Revival, one which was to influence scholars, collectors and dealers, and the general public.

In 1931 the museum had assembled a Victorian Exhibition, under the chairmanship of the director, Sir Cecil Harcourt-Smith, at 23a Bruton Street in aid of St Bartholomew's Hospital. It consisted mainly of what is now considered 'Victoriana'- objects such as papier- maché, Baxter Prints, sand-pictures and memorabilia of the Great Exhibition of 1851- housed in room settings. In 1951, Charles Gibbs-Smith, the museum's public relations officer- a charming eccentric whose real interest was in aeronautics- mounted a display to commemorate the Great Exhibition of 1851, but this was in much the same vein. Also in 1951 an Edwardian

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Festival Exhibition was held at Eastbourne but like the previous Victorian exhibition of 1931 it consisted mainly of anonymous material assembled primarily for its picturesque or nostalgic appeal.

The 1952 Exhibition was to prove to be an entirely different affair. As Peter Floud pointed out in his introduction to the catalogue the 1952 Exhibition Attempts something at once more limited and more ambitious in that it only includes objects that can the authoritatively attributed to the leading Victorian and Edwardian designers (though a few examples of pottery and textiles have been included which, though exactly datable and attributable to specific firms, cannot be assigned to a particular designer owing to the strong emphasis on anonymity that was common among Victorian manufacturers).'

He went on to point out that 'these twin criteria of date and attribution gave a decided impetus to a scientific study of tendencies and developments in Victorian and Edwardian design, bringing some clarity into a period which had hitherto been the simultaneous victim of academic indifference and dilettante enthusiasm.'

The team involved in the research for the exhibition was composed of Peter Floud himself, Hugh Wakefield (1915-84)2 the assistant keeper, and the four research assistants Elizabeth Aslin (1923-89), 3 Shirley Bury (1925-99), 4 John Lowry and myself. Peter Floud supervised the whole operation and was closely concerned with the William Morris section, while Hugh Wakefield devoted his research to ceramics and glass. Elizabeth Aslin was specially concerned with furniture and the designers for whom furniture formed a major part of their output. Shirley Bury was responsible for metalwork and jewellery and designers such as Pugin and C.R Ashbee. I was responsible for textiles, embroidery and wallpaper and also much involved with the Morris section. John Lowry was allocated Owen Jones and Christopher Dresser.

Inevitably there was a good deal of overlap and our individual researches were not strictly confined to any one area. There was very close co-operation between Elizabeth Aslin, Shirley Bury and myself and we eagerly passed on information to each other. The fact that we had joined the department within months of each other- I in June 1947, Elizabeth in September 1947 and Shirley in February 1948- and that we were all art school trained (Elizabeth and I at the Slade, Shirley at Reading University) helped strengthen the bond. The fact that we were women probably contributed to our closeness- we were sometimes known as 'The Three Graces', sometimes, less flatteringly as 'Peter Floud's women'. We, like Peter Floud and Hugh Wakefield, were full of enthusiasm for the task in hand and were to become acknowledged experts in the various fields of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts. Sadly, John Lowry did not share the same enthusiasm and after being seconded to help set up a museum in Kuala

Lumpur, joined the Indian Section of the museum, becoming an expert in Far-Eastern artefacts.

In recent years the organisers of major museum exhibitions, at the V&A and elsewhere, have normally been given sabbaticals to concentrate on research and the tracing of exhibits, or in other cases freelance researchers have been appointed to the task. Floud and his team had to carry out their research alongside their normal day to day activities. As Peter Floud was to point out in his introduction 'in the complete absence of any secondary sources the search for material has been based almost exclusively on references in contemporary periodicals and on the memories of descendants of the designers.' In the instance of contemporary periodicals we were fortunate in having the resources of the National Art Library, housed in the V&A, readily available. We set about the systematic perusal of the appropriate periodicals, including the Art Union, Art Journal, Magazine of Art , The Studio , architectural periodicals, catalogues of the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions and the numerous 19th and early 20th century International Exhibitions. Foreign periodicals such as Dekorative Kunst, Kunst und Kunsthandwerk and Die Moderne Stil were particularly helpful in the case of designers such as Voysey, Ashbee, Baillie Scott and Mackintosh whose work was much admired abroad and frequently illustrated. We had none of the present day resources such as computers, fax and the world wide web. The museum did not even have a photocopier and volumes had to be sent over to the Science Museum when we wanted an illustration for reference. I still have the large, indexed volume I kept full of hand-written notes and sketches as an aide- memoire with now faded photostats stuck in, these days looking rather dog-eared and tatty.The help of the press, radio and television was also sought, sometimes with appeals for particular untraced objects.

Half a century ago we had the advantage that the close relatives- sons, daughters, even widows- and sometimes colleagues were still alive. A number of the protagonists including C.F.A Voysey (1857-1941) and A. H Mackmurdo (1851-1942) were only recently deceased, and a few, including Frank Brangwyn, were still alive. However, as Floud pointed out, 'many contemporary clues were successfully followed down to the last war only to die out as the result of the breaking up of homes, the disposal of possessions, and the destruction of records for salvage by auctioneers and dealers.' Although many of the manufacturers of the period were still in existence, few had kept records or actual examples of the earlier productions.

The exhibition consisted mainly of loan material. There were no less than 270 lenders, described by the director, Leigh Ashton as 'an unprecedented figure'. They ranged from private individuals, manufacturers, churches, museums, mostly from this country but a few from continental museums- the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, the Kunstgewerbe Museum , Zürich

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and the Nordenßeldske Kunstindustri Museum, Trondheim. The foreign loans consisted mainly of textiles, which were relatively easy to transmit. The money and resources to borrow large pieces of furniture, or fragile items, from abroad were not available. For loans from our own country we were able to use our own vans and packing staff which were largely under the control of the Circulation Department, which was the main user of their services.

There was no designer for the exhibition and virtually no decor. The objects were left to speak for themselves. Large objects were left free-standing on the mosaic floor, tapestries and large embroideries were hung on the wall, the smaller pieces of textiles and wallpaper being framed. Small three-dimensional objects were shown in standard museum cases. Sadly, no adequate photographic record of the exhibition was made but black and white photographs of individual objects, and some small groups, exist housed in four loose-leaf guard books with blue linen-bound covers, kept in the Department of Furniture and Woodwork. They have been well-used, and are now in a somewhat dilapidated state. A good description of the over-all look of the exhibition was given by Reyner Banham in Art News and Review (vol. 4, no 21, November 1952, p.3). He first praised its

eye popping, hair-raising richness- colour against colour, texture against texture, and pattern against ripe, bold florid pattern- everywhere pattern: textiles and hangings twenty feet up the walls; the floor nicely cluttered with furniture, massive or flimsy, staid or eccentric. But not, repeat not pretty or whimsical or amusing. This exhibition could be the death of the cult of fashionable Victoriana, for the imposing seriousness of what is to be seen here reveals the tawdriness of the interior decorators' XIX century phantasy.5 Banham also congratulated Peter Floud and his team

for rescuing designers from the oblivion of neglect and indiscriminate fancy and like Nikolaus Pevsner before him he realised how the roots of modern design lay in the work of these 19th century pioneers.

Inferior followers and imitators- or 'epigones' as Peter Floud liked to call them- were deliberately excluded and in order to prevent the exhibition being too diffuse the arts of the book and fashion were also excluded. Stained glass, although appropriate, was omitted owing both to the difficulty of finding movable examples and the problem of display. Nevertheless, there were some 900 exhibits, divided into 26 sections lettered from A to Z.

The catalogue, a slim volume measuring 9l/i by 5V2 inches with no illustrations, was by present standards an extremely modest affair which sold for four shillings. Even so its closely printed 148 pages contained a wealth of information not easily obtainable elsewhere. Each section had a brief introduction to the subject such as ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery etc. with

bibliographic details of each individual designer and selected bibliographies. Undoubtedly in the light of present knowledge there are many omissions- and some errors, but the catalogue still provides a good basis for research into the period. Indeed when in the 1970s a cache of unsold catalogues was found and put on sale at 20p they were quickly snapped up by those who had ̂ not seen the actual exhibition.

In addition a small picture book was issued in connection with the exhibition (Small Picture Book No 34. First published October 1952). It contained 32 plates of black and white photographs of both museum and loan objects from the exhibition which, as a note explained, all survived and were 'newly photographed for the purposes of this publication'. The original edition had a rather boring terracotta and cream cover, embellished with the Royal Coat of Arms. It cost two shillings but was reissued in 1956 with a more lively cover with a circular motif derived from an Owen Jones woven silk printed in black and white on an emerald green cover. The captions showed that a number of the loan objects had subsequently been acquired by the museum and the price was raised to five shillings.

It was fitting that the first section (A) was devoted to Felix Summerly 's Art Manufactures, the enterprise set up, in 1847, by Sir Henry Cole, the museum's first director, who believed that by persuading prominent artists and sculptors to produce designs for manufactured articles of everyday use public taste could be improved and the standard of design raised. This opening section comprised six articles by the sculptor John Bell (1811-95) and a teapot, cup and saucer designed by Cole himself (fig. 2), together with objects designed by the painters Richard Redgrave, J. C Horsley, John Linnell and Henry Townsend. All the objects were from the museum's own collections.

The next section (B) was devoted to Alfred Stevens and his followers. The 'Rape of Proserpine' grate [4029- 1853] and a free-standing stove [4030- 1853], both made by Henry Hoole & Co, of Sheffield, had been acquired by the museum at the time of manufacture and these were supplemented by loans from the Walker Art Gallery and George Wostenholme and Sons. Four examples of the ceramics designed for Minton's had been acquired by the museum in 1864 and a single surviving table from those Stevens had designed for the museum restaurant in the 1850s was rescued from a storeroom and registered by the Circulation Department [Circ.134- 1952]. His pupil, James Gamble, was represented by a grand-piano which was given to the museum by Henry Cole's son, Alan S. Cole, in 1913. This was later put on a Board of Survey (a means of disposing of unwanted museum objects) and passed for destruction. Fortunately it escaped that fate and we found the piano in an underground storeroom known as 'Clinch's Hole' where, according to legend, a warder of that name had perished.

Section C, devoted to Pugin, was dominated by the

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Fig. 2. Tea-set designed by Henry Cole, made by Minton and awarded a Society of Arts Prize in 1846. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

huge cabinet [25- 1852] acquired by the museum directly from the Great Exhibition of 1851, as were two chalices and two Minton plates. The majority of the exhibits, however, were loans from churches and private individuals and it was generally a good and impressive representation of his work.

The next three sections, comprising examples from the International Exhibitions (D), Early Victorian Pottery 1837-1871 (E) and Early Victorian Glass 1837- 1876 (F) were drawn mainly from objects already in the possession of the museum, for until about 1880 the museum had regularly bought objects of current manufacture particularly from the various international exhibitions. Another source for ceramics and glass was the Jermyn Street Collection. These objects were originally acquired by the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street which was founded by Sir Henry de la Beche in 1835. The museum contained mostly geological specimens but also objects that showed 'the application of various mineral substances to the useful purposes of life, notably pottery'. Although collected from a technological rather than an artistic point of view, the ceramics and glass included fine objects which were passed on to theV&A in 1901. The later sections of ceramics and glass (N, Q and X) included slightly more loans from the manufacturers and other museums.

Section G was devoted to Owen Jones and William Butterfield. Owen Jones was well represented by textiles and wallpapers for Warner and Sons had preserved a large quantity of the silk damasks Jones had designed for Benjamin Warner in the 1870s and the Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design (popularly known as EID) had numerous examples of the wallpapers he designed for John Trumble and Sons in the late 1850s and those for Jeffrey and Sons in the 1860s and 1870s. Only two items of his furniture were included, a table and chair made for James Mason of Eynsham Hall about 1872 (fig. 3), which were traced to the possession of the Home Office. These were acquired by the Circulation Department (Circ 522 and 523- 1952). Although Circulation was officially supposed to acquire only those objects which could be included in travelling exhibitions, much of the furniture and other objects acquired from the 1952 Exhibition were registered by Circulation since there was still a strong reluctance on the part of the main curatorial departments of the museum to acquire 19th and 20th century objects. None of Butterfields ecclesiastical work was included but three items of furniture he designed for a house, Milton Ernest, about 1855 were lent by the owners. He was to receive a much better showing in the Exhibition ofVictorian Church Art organised by Shirley

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Fig. 3. Table and chair of teak, inlaid with walnut, rosewood and sycamore, designed by Owen Jones for James Mason of Eynsham Hall, about 1872. Above a group of woven silks designed by Owen Jones for Benjamin Warner, 1870-80. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Bury in 1971. Section H was devoted to Bruce Talbert and

Christopher Dresser. Although Bruce Talbert was one of the most important and prolific designers, particularly of furniture, only one sideboard was traced. This solitary piece was made by Gillows and exhibited in London in 1873. It was lent by the Commissioners of the Great

Exhibition and (unlike the furniture by Owen Jones) acquired by the Department of Furniture and Woodwork (W44-1953). Thirteen examples of his wallpaper, including dadoes and friezes, were included together with three silk damasks lent by Warners and subsequently acquired by Circulation (Circ 296, 297, 298- 1953), the first two now being reattributed to

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Fig. 4. Electro-plated tea-pot, milk jug and sugar basin, designed by Christopher Dresser for James Dixon and Sons, 1880. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

E.W Godwin. Christopher Dresser received an equally poor

showing, which is surprising since his daughter Nellie was still alive and was interviewed by John Lowry. She lent a James Dixon and Son electroplated teapot, milk jug and sugar basin (later acquired by the museum Circ 279 A&B- 1961) (fig. 4) a set of fire irons and a piece of Clutha glass which she gave to the museum (Circ 81- 1952). His Linthorpe and Ault pottery was reasonably well represented but there was no Minton or Wedgwood and only two pieces of rather undistinguished furniture. The display was completed by a quilt (fig. 6) commemorating Queen Victoria s 1887 Jubilee (which was displayed on the Burges bed) and three wallpapers and fragments of textiles of somewhat dubious attribution. Nevertheless this meagre showing was enough to stimulate interest in a designer who had remained largely forgotten since his death in 1904 and only known to a few through Nikolaus Pevsner's article of 1937 in the Architectural Review (Vol LXXVI) .

Subsequently there have been numerous publications and exhibitions, both at home and abroad, devoted to Dresser.

In marked contrast, the next section (I) devoted to William Morris and his associates was by far the largest and most comprehensive in the whole exhibition with 97 exhibits, and text occupying 14 pages of the catalogue. Unlike Dresser, his exact contemporary, Morris had never been forgotten and Morris and Company survived until 1940. The museum had honoured him by a Centenary Exhibition in 1934. As

Peter Floud pointed out, whereas with virtually all the other sections it was a matter of showing everything that had been traced, with Morris and his associates it was a question of selection. The Green Dining Room, one of the museum's original refreshment rooms commissioned from Morris, Marshall Faulkner and Company in 1867, was given a superficial clean (after the assorted jumble of objects that had been stored in it had been cleared out) and used to house most of the furniture, together with tapestries and embroideries (fig. 5). Much of the material came from museum's own resources but important loans from George Howard (whose ancestor the Earl of Carlisle had been one of Morris's major patrons) and other private individuals completed the selection. The work of Burne-Jones, Philip Webb, George Jack, Kate Faulkner, J. H Dearie andWilliam De Morgan was also exhibited. The only serious omissions were stained glass and the Holy Grail series of tapestries which were excluded for reasons of space. At the time of the exhibition the windows of the Green Dining Room were boarded up and it was thought that the stained glass had been destroyed during the war. Several years later the windows, designed by Burne-Jones, were found in crates in the crypt. They had apparently been removed dijring the war after they had been damaged by bomb blast, but were sufficiently intact to be repaired and reinstalled.

The display of work by William Burges (Section J) although relatively small was possibly one of the most spectacular, with the bed (fig. 6) and washstand from his home at Melbury Road, later acquired by the

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Fig. 5. Green Dining Room decorated by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co, 1867, with the exhibits shown at the 1952 Exhibition but photographed after the stained glass had been found and re-instated. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

museum (W.4&5- 1953). The great bookcase from the 1862 Exhibition was lent by the Ashmolean Museum and private lenders provided some impressive examples of his metalwork. Fragments of his wallpapers were lent by the RIBA.

The museum was equally fortunate in being able to acquire two major pieces of furniture by E.W Godwin, an ebonised cabinet with silver-plated fittings and embossed 'leather paper' panels made by William Watt, about 1877 (Circ 38- 1953) and the 'Monkey' cabinet of about 1876 (Circ 34- 1958), together with a chair (Circ 258- 1958). Two tables lent by Bristol Museum were also included, together with three wallpapers. Thomas Jekyll was also represented in this section by wrought iron sunflowers from the ironwork pavilion at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876 and a panel of embroidery from the same pavilion.

Thanks to the existence of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, which had received a bequest from Mackmurdo himself at his death in 1942, we had few problems in tracing the work of A. H Mackmurdo and the Century Guild (L).The Colchester and Essex Museum also made a substantial contribution, as did a

relative, Miss Elinor Pugh. Section M combined the work of Lewis F Day,

Walter Crane and Heywood Sumner, who were closely associated with the Art Workers' Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. This section was dominated by wallpapers and textiles, but two items of furniture by Lewis F. Day (fig. 7), best known as a designer of flat patterns and writer of books on design, were included which were later acquired by Circulation (Circ 349 & 350- 1955). Tiles and ceramics by both Day and Crane were represented. A number of the exhibits came from the Manchester Regional College of Art which had built up an impressive collection of contemporary decorative arts under the directorship of Walter Crane, from 1893 to 1898.

The two ecclesiastical sections (O & Z) were furnished mainly by the churches for which the objects were designed and included altar frontais by Norman Shaw, J. D Sedding, Philip Webb and Reynolds Stephens. It also included the work of designers such as Burges and Selwyn Image who were also represented in the appropriate secular sections.

Section P was devoted to the work of C.R Ashbee

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Fig. 6. Bed designed by William Burges for the guest chamber of his own house, The Tower House, Melbury Road, in 1879. The quilt on the bed was designed by Christopher Dresser. Above are fragments of wallpapers designed by Burges for Jeffrey and Co. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

and Baillie Scott who, apart from stylistic affinities were connected through their decorations of the palace at Darmstadt for the Duke of Hesse, but none of this work was traced. The Ashbee exhibit comprised mostly of silver and jewellery, much of which remained in family possession. Shirley Bury was responsible for Ashbee but I made a small contribution by finding the huge silver- plated soup tureen and ladle (fig. 8) made for Ashbee s mother about 1890-3 (illustrated in The Studio Vol.V 1895 p.67) in a South Kensington junk shop, for the absurd price of -jT2. 10s. It was immediately purchased and registered by Circulation (Circ 62 a&b- 1952). Before the exhibition such finds were possible.

Four examples of Baillie Scotts furniture made by J. P. White of Bedford were exhibited, together with one of his now famous Manxman pianos made by Broadwood about 1900 (fig. 9). None of the furniture for the houses he designed in Germany, Romania, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and the USA was traced and although he designed a number of domestic articles only one lighting fitting was exhibited, together with a number of embroideries.

One of the most impressive sections of the

exhibition, section R, was that comprising the work of the Glasgow School, dominated by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret and Frances Macdonald. Although there had been a memorial exhibition in Glasgow in 1933, it was probably the first time his work, and that of the other members of 'The Four', had been seen outside Scotland and it made a huge impact (fig. 10). It was the only section of the exhibition to have any decor, for the museums painter, Jock Macdonald, cut stencils of the design at Hill House, Helensburgh, which were then used to provide a background to the display. Beaten copper sconces, plaques, candlesticks and mirror frames by Frances and Margaret Macdonald represented the so-called 'spook school' with their strange, sinuous figures. Talwin Morris was represented by a cupboard, mirror and blind lent by Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery. The Glasgow School of Embroidery was fairly well represented thanks to Mrs Sturrock who I went to see in Edinburgh. She was, as far as I can remember, related to the Newberys and contributed fine examples by Jessie Newbery and Ann Macbeth, which were later acquired by the museum, together with a panel from a lampshade made by

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Fig. 7. Mahogany sideboard with painted panels and convex glass mirror, designed by Lewis F. Day about 1888. Above a selection of textiles designed by Lewis F. Day for Turnbull and Stockdale. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Fig. 8. Soup tureen, cover and ladle designed by C. R. Ashbee for Mrs H.S. Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft, about 1890-3. Silver- plated, the knobs set with a semi-precious stone, the ladle with an ivory handle. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Fig. 9. Group of furniture by M. H. Baillie Scott with curtain fabric and Bridgewood and Sons earthenware dish. The 'Manxman' oak piano with steel fittings and brass sconces was made by Broadwood about 1900. The inlaid oak cupboard made by J.P.White, Pyghtle Works Bedford, about 1901. The inlaid mahogany clock was also made by J. P. White. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

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Fig. 10. Tea table, toilet table, mirror and armchair designed by C.R. Mackintosh. The tea table and the armchair were exhibited at Turin in 1902. The toilet table and mirror was exhibited in Vienna in 1900. The beaten copper sconce was made by Margaret and Frances Macdonald about 1896. The panel of stencilled canvas was made by Margaret Macdonald about 1898. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

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Margaret Macdonald. George Walton was also represented in this section

and our task was made easier by the fact that his widow was still alive. She lent examples of 'Clutha' and Powell glass designed by her husband, and also three fascinating clear glass vases and covers designed by him but made by Venetian glass workers at the Italian Exhibition held at Earl's Court in 1904. These she gave to the museum (Cire 96&A, 97&A, 98&A-1953) together with some of the other glass and cutlery which had been exhibited at the 1903 Arts and Crafts Exhibition. The most substantial part of the George Walton display however was of furniture (fig- il) and other items from the White House, Shiplake, lent by the owner Sir Ronald Davison.

I remember going to York and Scarborough in search of Walton exhibits, but although one of the two cafés he designed for Rowntrees remained, I was only able to achieve a pair of beaten copper firedogs set with coloured glass which Rowntrees gave to the museum (Circ 120&A- 1953).

As Peter Floud pointed out in his introduction to the catalogue, in the case of C.F.A Voysey (Section S) there was enough available material to make possible a selection of exhibits rather than have to rely merely on what we had been able to trace. His son C. Cowles Voysey and his niece, Miss P.M. A. Voysey were able to lend many items including textiles, clocks, metalwork and a Wedgwood coffee pot and sugar bowl, although most of the furniture was lent by a Mrs Bottard and several pieces, including a writing desk of 1896, were bought by the museum (W.6- 1953).Tomkinson s had preserved several pieces of the carpets he had designed for them in the late 1890s and the museum acquired the 'Green Pastures' carpet and border (T.72 & 74- 1953 and 'the Wykehamist' (T.73- 1953). Morton Sundour Fabrics were able to lend 43 examples of his textiles and wallpapers and many of them were later given to the museum. Among the few foreign loans to the exhibition was a panel of seven tiles illustrating 'The Labours' designed by Voysey for Pilkington's. These were borrowed from the Nordenjjeldske Kunstindustri Museum , Trondheim.

I remember visiting 'Perrycroft' at Colwall, near Malvern, one ofVoysey's first substantial commissions of 1894. The widow of the original owner, Mr J.W Wilson, was still alive but she had moved to another house in Malvern and had no Voysey furniture. Indeed her husband had mainly furnished the house from Morris and Company and we were able to borrow a Morris carpet from her. I also recall that one of the rooms at 'Perrycrofť still had Morris's 'Acanthus' wallpaper. The same trip to Malvern also included a visit to Earl Beauchamp at Madresfield Court, with its fine 'Art and Crafts' chapel from which we borrowed the fine altar cross and candlestick, designed by Arthur and Geòrgie Gaskin, which had been given to the 7th Earl as a wedding gift from his wife in 1902. These

and their jewellery were included in sections W and Z. Section T was devoted to the Cotswold School and

its precursors. At the time none of the work of 'Kenton and Company' was traced, but Gimsons's later work was well represented together with a 1899 cupboard by Ernest Barnsley and a table and cupboard by Sidney Barnsley. Perhaps the most interesting exhibit in this section was a fine oak sideboard by W.R Lethaby from Melsetter House at Hoy, in the Orkneys, a house he designed in 1898 for Thomas Middlemore. Our attention was drawn to this by the late John Brandon- Jones (1909-99) an architect who was in partnership with Cowles-Voysey. During the second world war, as a naval officer, he was posted to the far north and was sent to visit Melsetter House as a possible base for the Naval top brass. The house made a deep impression on him. In fact he recommended that everyone should try to visit it. After the daughter of the original owners died the house was put up for sale and John negotiated with the Trustees of the Middlemore Estates to bring down the furniture that they wished to sell. It presented a great deal of difficulty to negotiate the transport, by container ship from the Orkneys. The museum was given the chance to buy any of the furniture but chose only the sideboard (Circ 41- 1953) and a fine George Jack secretaire and stand which was included in the Morris section (Circ 40- 1953). The Trustees did not want any of the furniture back and the rest was bought by John for his house in Hampstead, where it still remains. Another item, originally from Melsetter, was also included in the exhibition, the 'Orchard' portière, designed by May Morris and embroidered by her friend Mrs Theodosia Middlemore in 1894. At the time of the exhibition it was owned by a Mr Robert Bartlett. Generally regarded as May Morris's finest design, the portière was later acquired by the museum (Circ. 206- 1964).

As the furniture of the Glasgow and Cotswold schools was shown in previous sections, section V, Edwardian furniture, included the work of three unrelated designers, Ambrose Heal, Frank Brangwyn and Phoebe Anna Tracquair. The most spectacular exhibit was the grand piano designed by Sir R.S Lorimer and painted by Phoebe Tracquair in 1911, with scenes and passages from the 'Song of Solomon' and illustrations of a Rossetti sonnet. This was made for the Great Hall, Lympne Castle, Kent.. Her enamel caskets and jewellery were equally sumptuous and were included in section W.

Her work also featured in the next section (V) devoted to late Victorian and Edwardian Embroidery. This included her masterpiece, four panels from an embroidered screen which were allegorical representations of four stages in the spiritual life of man. The first panel, 'The Entrance', was worked in 1895, the second 'The Stress' in 1897, the third, 'Despair' in 1899 and the final panel 'The Victory' in 1902. The screen belonged to the National Gallery of Scotland

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Fig. 11. Group of furnishings designed by George Walton. The walnut cabinet, about 1900, and the rug, 1908, made by Alexander Morton and Co, were made for the White House, Shiplake. The mahogany armchair, about 1900, upholstered in a silk and linen tissue made by Alexander Morton and Co, was originally in the designers possession. Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum

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and I first saw it when I visited Edinburgh. Some twenty years later through my book on Victorian Embroidery I was to meet her grand-daughter, who lived in Canada. She gave a number of her grandmothers embroideries to the museum and some years later I met another relative in Scotland. Whereas Phoebe Tracquair's embroideries relied on fine stitchery, most of the other embroideries in the section employed bolder techniques, particularly appliqué. These included an appliqué hanging designed by Godfrey Blount, made by Haslemere Peasant Industries, and the 'Gareth and Lyneť hanging by Mary Newill who taught design and embroidery at Birmingham School of Art, where May Morris was a visiting lecturer.Three unusual items were a cot cover by Christine Drummond Angus, Sickert s second wife, who married him in 191 1, and two cushion covers by Thérèse Lessore, his third wife, whom he married in 1926.

Section W, Metalwork and Jewellery, was one of the most spectacular. Outstanding was the silver and parcel- gilt epergne by Alfred Gilbert lent by H.M the Queen, which dominated this section. Made for Queen Victorias 1887 Jubilee, the design was symbolic of Britannia's realm.

The English Arts and Crafts Movement was well represented by the work of Alexander Fisher, Henry Wilson, John Paul Cooper, Phoebe Tracquair, George Frampton, Omar Ramsden and others. More functional examples by W.A.S Benson and Arthur Stansfield Dixon were also included.

Section Y, Late Victorian and Edwardian Textiles, was somewhat residual as most of the outstanding textiles and wallpapers were included in the sections devoted to the individual designers.

The last section, Z, Edwardian Ecclesiastical Design, showed how many of the designers had moved away from traditional Gothic forms and favoured more eclectic styles, taking their forms and symbolism from diverse sources including Celtic and Byzantine. The influence of Art Nouveau was apparent in the work of William Reynolds Stephens from St Mary the Virgin, Great Warley. Most of the exhibits were of the ecclesiastical work of the designers whose secular work had been included in their individual sections.

As Rayner Banham and others pointed out, the exhibition changed attitudes towards the artefacts of the period, although it took some time to change the attitude of most of the museum's departments and for many years the staff of Circulation Department remained the chief experts in the field. It was to Cirulation that a new generation of dealers and collectors came for advice and identification of their purchases. Outstanding among collectors were Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read to whom the exhibition came as a revelation, with Charles becoming increasingly interested in Victorian architecture. Their collection was initially limited by lack of space and financial resources, but after moving to a larger house

in 1958, and by the time of their tragic deaths in 1971 they had built up a collection of museum quality, which was displayed at the Royal Academy in 1972. Sadly, owing to heavy death duties, the collection was sold, a considerable proportion being acquired by theVictoria and Albert Museum and the Cecil Higgins Museum, Bedford.

There is no doubt that the 1952 Exhibition was seminal. It brought about a complete change in public approach to the decorative arts of that period. The event also spurred on the foundations in 1955 of the William Morris Society, in 1958 of the Victorian Society and in 1976 of our own Decorative Arts Society. I think it is fair to state that although modest by current standards, it was possibly one of the most important exhibitions of the 20th century.

Barbara Morris was educated at the North London Collegiate School and the Slade School of Fine Art and joined theV & A as a Research Assistant in 1947, retiring as Deputy Keeper of Ceramics and Glass in 1978. In 1979 she set up Sotheby's Institute 19th and 20th century Decorative Arts Course and was head of the Institute's Short Courses from 1984-1988. Her publications include Victorian Embroidery (1962), Victorian Table Glass and Ornaments (1978), Inspiration for Design (1986) and Liberty Design (1989). She has been an expert on the BBC Antiques Roadshow since 1980.

NOTES 'For a fuller account of Circulation Department see Morris, Barbara, Inspiration for Design: The Influence of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1984. 2 Hugh Wakefield, MA Cantab, Hon FMA, FRSA was educated at King Edward's School Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in 1935 and after war service became Assistant Keeper of Circulation in 1948, becoming Keeper of the department on the death of Peter Floud in 1960. He wrote a pioneering book on Victorian Pottery (Herbert Jenkins, London 1962) and one on 19th Century British Glass (Faber, London, 1961, 2nd edition 1982). 3 Elizabeth Aslin joined the Circulation Department as a Research Assistant in 1947 and was appointed Assistant Keeper in 1964, becoming Assistant Director to John Pope Hennessey in 1968, a post she held until she took over Bethnal Green Museum as Keeper in Charge, retiring in 1981. Her important book 19th Century English Furniture was published by Faber in 1962. Her second book The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art Nouveau (Elek, London 1969) was the first on this subject. 4 Shirley Bury, MA (joined Circulation Department as a Research Assistant in 1948 and was appointed Assistant Keeper in the Library in 1962. She moved to Metalwork Department in 1968, becoming Deputy Keeper in 1972 and Keeper in 1982. She wrote extensively on metalwork and jewellery, her major works being the two volume work on Jewellery 1789-1910 (Antique Collectors Club, 1991) and a major part of The Crown Jewels (HMSO, 1998) a catalogue raisonné of the Royal Collection. She served on the British Hallmarking Council from 1974-1985: was a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and a sometime President of the Society of Jewellery Historians. 5 Quoted by Anthony Burton in his book Vision and Accident. The Story of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V & A Publications 1999). I am also grateful to Anthony Burton for information on other Victorian exhibitions.

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