Designer Biography

Ford Madox Brown

Born: 1821

Died: 1893

See items in our stock by Ford Madox Brown

Brown met Rossetti and Holman Hunt in 1848 and became closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. In the 1850s he became interested in the education of working men and in 1856 he met Morris, a meeting that led to his becoming a founder member of the Morris firm in 1861. Before this he had been experimenting with furniture and stained glass design, and it was in this latter capacity that he continued to work for Morris until about 1874. As well as his involvement in the decoration of Seddon's 'King Rene' cabinet, his other exhibit at the 1862 London International Exhibition was a bookcase illustrating scenes from the life of an English family from 1810 to 1860. The drawings for it are in the Ashmolean Museum. From 1878 until his death he was engaged on the decorations for Manchester Town Hall. Benson took up the simple joiner furniture that Madox Brown had designed in the early days of the firm, and versions of the bedroom furniture featured in the firm's catalogue in the twentieth century.