Ernest William Gimson was a furniture designer and architect. His brother Sydney Gimson was president of Leicester Secular Society and their father Josiah was the main force behind the building of Leicester’s Secular Hall.

Ernest met William Morris at the Hall and later became one of the most influential designers in Morris’s ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement.

See Also…

• Wikipedia biography of Gimson

William Morris

William Morris was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist.

Morris was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he developed an interest in art and the Middle Ages and became friends with artists such as Burne-Jones. He read a great deal of theology and ecclesiastical history. He was involved in the formation of a ‘Brotherhood’ for the creation of religious art. Influenced by Rossetti he painted and concerned himself with production of beautiful books and house decoration.

Morris wrote long poems which indicated his move away from religion. The title of a long poem The Earthly Paradise shows a preference for a secular heaven. His lines ‘Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell ‘ from A Dream of John Bull suggest that the bond of friendship was human and of this life. ‘Fellowship’ also indicates his move towards the comradeship of socialism.

In the 1880s he took an active interest in socialism, which he considered meant the creation of an ideal society. His Utopian novel News From Nowhere depicts such a society. By this time he was quite critical of religion and is said to have attacked Christianity with zest. Yet he always took a greater interest in socialism than in freethought. However in the latter part of his life he devoted himself almost entirely to artistic and literary work.

A famous quotation comes from Hopes and Fears for Art : ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ A very secular ideal.

William Morris gave a famous address ‘Art and Socialism’ at Leicester’s Secular Hall on 23 January 1884. He also met Ernest Gimson there who later became a follower of his ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement, and a craftsman in his own right.

Legacy

A number of galleries and museums house important collections of Morris’s work including

• the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London
• the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton
• Morris’s homes Red House, Bexleyheath and Kelmscott Manor, London

Also see…

• The William Morris Internet Archive
• The William Morris Society
• Wikipedia biography on Morris
• Portraits of Morris at the National Portrait Gallery

John Baskerville

John Baskerville was an avowed atheist and renown printer.

Born at Sion Hill Farm, Wolverley, Worcestershire. He was employed as a footman and became a writing teacher and calligrapher.

He taught himself japanning, the covering of metalware with layers of varnish usually decorated with pictures, and from 1740 made it a successful business in Moor Street, Birmingham.

He lived openly with his companion Sarah Eaves, whose husband had left her, braving disapproval and gossip ignoring convention. They gave support and advice to the young industrialist Matthew Boulton.

Baskerville experimented in letter founding and produced several typefaces, before printing a notable edition of Virgil in 1757.

He also improved printing-press design, paper-making and ink-making, and used a more spacious layout with wide margins and leading between the lines. His typefaces were greatly admired by Benjamin Franklin, also a printer, who visited him in 1758 and took the designs back to the US. That year he also became printer to Cambridge University.

He produced editions of Milton, the Bible 1763 and Shakespeare 1769.

An avowed atheist in his will he left instructions that he was to be buried in a lead coffin in a conical vault which he had prepared, in his own garden. After the house was sold in 1788 the vault was removed, but the coffin remained until 1821. The open coffin was put on display, for 6d a head, until in 1829 people start to fall ill!

The coffin was reburied secretly among others in a church vault and only rediscovered in 1892. When the church was demolished in 1898 he was reburied in catacombs at Warstone Lane Cemetery.

A Portland stone sculpture of the Baskerville typeface, by local artist David Patten, stands in front of Baskerville House in Centenary Square, Birmingham, on the site of his old home.

The Humanist Heritage logo uses the Baskerville font.

Also see…

• Wikipedia article on Baskerville
• Birmingham Jewellery Quarter article on Baskerville
• Revolutionary Players article on Baskerville
• The Baskerville Project
• Portraits of Baskerville at the National Portrait Gallery
• John Baskerville animated film (below)