“THE BEAUTY OF THE BOUGH-HUNG BANKS”: WILLIAM MORRIS IN THE THAMES LANDSCAPE by Sarah Marie Mead Leonard A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History Spring 2020 © 2020 Sarah Marie Mead Leonard All Rights Reserved “THE BEAUTY OF THE BOUGH-HUNG BANKS”: WILLIAM MORRIS IN THE THAMES LANDSCAPE by Sarah Marie Mead Leonard Approved: __________________________________________________________ Sandy Isenstadt, Ph.D. Chair of the Department of Art History Approved: __________________________________________________________ John Pelesko, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Approved: __________________________________________________________ Douglas J. Doren, Ph.D. Interim Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education and Dean of the Graduate College I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Sandy Isenstadt, Ph.D. Professor in charge of dissertation I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Margaret Stetz, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Zara Anishanslin, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Tim Barringer, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation argues that people are shaped by places. It therefore seems right to thank, first and foremost, the places that shaped me: the red dirt of the North Carolina Piedmont and the clear cold streams of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the thousands of other places that have followed. The process of this dissertation has taken me across continents and oceans. It has shown me the unfailing support of my academic community, friends, and family, and brought new, treasured people and places into my life. I could write another 400 pages of thanks for them and for the opportunities and experiences of this process, but these brief acknowledgements will have to suffice. I am grateful to my dissertation committee, Sandy Isenstadt, Margaret Stetz, Zara Anishanslin, and Tim Barringer. As my advisor, Sandy has provided invaluable support throughout my time at the University of Delaware. This project could never have existed without his encouragement, feedback, and enthusiasm for my interdisciplinary explorations. Margaret deserves mention not only for her ebullient support of my work, but also for smiling at an undergraduate Victorianist across a conference dinner table in 2008 and saying “You should consider the University of Delaware for graduate school.” It was good advice. Talking with Zara assured me that my work was coherent and even exciting, and I am so thankful for her thoughtful input and ability to see strengths I did not know I had. Tim has supported this project since long before any words were put to paper, and his interest in my approach to Morris has meant a great deal to me as I worked. iv The University of Delaware Department of Art History has been my home for the better part of a decade, and I am abundantly thankful to everyone I have worked with there. I was lucky to find a department which is so devoted to nurturing not only our scholarship but also our community. I particularly appreciate the professors who happily welcomed my interdisciplinary angles to their subjects – experiences writing for Professors Domínguez Torres, Nees, and Okoye stand out in my mind. Although I was never able to take any of her courses, Wendy Bellion has also bolstered my scholarship in myriad ways. The Curatorial Track PhD program drew me to Delaware, and the professional and academic support of its advisors has been invaluable as I pursued my career goals. One of the best aspects of my time at UD has been the opportunity for interdisciplinary study and collaboration. I am thankful to the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture for welcoming me with open arms and making me a permanent part of their community. Brock Jobe, Rosemary Krill, Greg Landrey, Emily Guthrie, and many other members of the Winterthur faculty and staff were all important figures in my time at UD. The UD Center for Material Culture Studies, meanwhile, provided me with abundant financial support – more on that later – but also made me part of a community of like-minded graduate students and faculty, headed by Martin Brückner and of course Sandy Isenstadt. I knew I would be happy at the University of Delaware the moment Mark Samuels Lasner put Edward Burne-Jones’s copy of News from Nowhere in my hands during my campus visit in 2011. I’ve valued Mark’s support and our conversations over our shared interests ever since. The rest of the UD library staff have also of course been at the heart of my scholarship. I particularly appreciate the work of the v ILL staff and Susan Davi, and the good cheer of the desk staff every time I arrived with a stack of books for them to process. The art history staff are so important that I find it difficult to articulate. Derek Churchill has always been a patient and endlessly helpful presence. Star Griffin was a cheering and steadying figure in my first years of the program, and Lauri Perkins gets double credit for helping me along my way (and being a friend) at both Winterthur and UD. And Linda Magner: invaluable does not even being to describe it. She’s there for every crisis and every joyous moment. But not only that – I have truly enjoyed getting to know her (and sharing knitting tips!) over the last eight years. The Delaware Art Museum’s Pre-Raphaelite collection and resources have hugely significant to the growth of my scholarship. I cannot understate how much I valued my time working with the museum’s staff, particularly Margaretta Frederick, whose conversations helped me to formulate this project and whose support has sustained it. I’m also thankful to the other museums where I have had the opportunity to hone my art historical and object-centered skills as an intern, and particularly to Charles Brock and the National Gallery of Art, where I got to spend a summer with the Victorian Thames through Whistler’s Wapping. I have been lucky to have teachers who nurtured my curiosity and ambitions at many junctures in my life, and for that, too, I am grateful. My professors at Wesleyan University deserve my thanks for forming my art historical mind and giving me the skills I needed to carry on in the field. The program in Historic Landscape Studies in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, meanwhile, made much of my ensuing scholarship possible, and for that I must thank Jonathan Finch and Mark vi Edmonds. The seeds of this dissertation were first planted there, in a seminar paper written for Mark’s course. The research for this dissertation has been generously supported by a variety of sources both inside and outside the University of Delaware. The Department of Art History’s Mellon Curatorial Track Fellowship allowed me to pursue both curatorial work and research. My first UK research trip was supported by the Department of Art History’s Global Dissertation Development Grant and the Center for Material Culture’s Delaware Public Humanities Institute and Friends of Rockwood Fund Grants. The Huntington Library and Art Collections were particularly generous, funding my research in their collections in San Marino through their Robert R. Wark Fellowship as well as nominating me for their Huntington-New College Oxford Exchange Fellowship. That exchange formed part of my second UK research trip, along with the William Morris Society in the United States’s Joseph R. Dunlap Memorial Fellowship and a Research Support Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. I also completed research at the Yale Center for British Art through their Visiting Scholar Award. Lastly, two generous year-long fellowships allowed me the space and time to write, revise, and complete this project: a Junior Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Library and the University of Delaware Department of Art History Sewell C. Biggs Dissertation Writing Fellowship. I am grateful also to the institutions that hosted me throughout these years of work. The curatorial staffs of the William Morris Gallery, Kelmscott Manor, and the Victoria and Albert Museum Clothworkers' Centre were particularly helpful as I began vii this project. My two months at the Huntington allowed me to work with many essential and rare materials, particularly the Merton Abbey Dye Book which is so central to this project. In Oxford, I was thrilled to have access to the vast collections of the Bodleian Libraries. In London, I found particular homes at the National Art Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, and the British Library, as well as making use of the collections of the Tate Library and Art Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of London. The library and staff of the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale library system were welcoming and helpful, and the library of Dumbarton Oaks was essential to completing this project.