Jane Morris - Life

Life

Jane Burden was born in Oxford to a stableman named Robert Burden and his wife Ann Maizey. At her birth, her parents were living at St Helen's Passage, in the parish of St Peter-in-the-East, off Holywell Street in Oxford. This has since been marked with a blue plaque. Her mother Ann was illiterate and probably came to Oxford as a domestic servant. Little is known of Jane Burden's childhood, but it was one of poverty and deprivation.

In October 1857, Burden and her sister Elizabeth, known in the family as "Bessie", were attending a performance in Oxford of the Drury Lane Theatre Company. Jane Burden was noticed by the artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones who belonged to a group of artists painting the Oxford Union murals, based on Arthurian tales. Struck by her beauty, they sought her to model for them. Burden initially sat mainly for Rossetti, who needed a model for Queen Guinevere. After this, she sat for William Morris, who was working on an easel painting, La Belle Iseult (Tate Gallery). Like Rossetti, Morris also used Burden as his model for his rendition of Queen Guinevere. During this period, Morris fell in love with Burden and they became engaged.

Burden's education was extremely limited and she was probably intended to go into domestic service. After her engagement, she was privately educated. Her keen intelligence allowed her essentially to recreate herself. She was a voracious reader and became proficient in French and later Italian. She also became an accomplished pianist with a strong background in classical music. Her manners and speech became refined to an extent that contemporaries referred to her as "Queenly". Later in life, she would have no trouble moving in upper class circles and she appears to have been the model for Mrs. Higgins in Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1914).

She married William Morris at St Michael's Church, Oxford, on 26 April 1859. Her father was at that time described as a groom, in stables at 65 Holywell Street, Oxford. After their marriage, the couple lived at the Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent. While in residence there, they had two daughters, Jane Alice "Jenny", born January 1861, and Mary "May" (March 1862–1938), who later would serve as editor of her father's works.They then moved to Queens Square in London and later bought Kelmscott House in Hammersmith which they used as their main residence. In 1871 Morris and Rossetti took out a joint tenancy on Kelmscott Manor on the Gloucestershire-Oxfordshire-Wiltshire borders. William Morris went to Iceland at this point leaving his wife and Rosetti to furnish the house and spend the summer there.

Jane Morris had became closely attached to the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and became a favourite muse of his. Their relationship is said to have started in 1865 and lasted, on differing levels, until his death in 1882. The two shared a deep emotional relationship, with Rossetti inspired by her to write poetry and create some of his best later paintings. Jane Morris' discovery of his dependence on the drug chloral taken to help cure his insomnia, eventually led her to distance herself somewhat from him, although they stayed in touch until he died in 1882.

In 1884, Morris met the poet and political activist Wilfrid Scawen Blunt at a house party given by her close friend Rosalind Howard (later Countess of Carlisle). There appears to have been an immediate attraction between the two. By 1887 at the latest, the pair had become lovers. Their sexual relationship would continue until 1894, and they remained close friends until her death.

Jane Morris was an ardent supporter of Irish Home Rule. A few months before her death, she managed to buy Kelmscott Manor to secure it for her daughters' future, although she did not return to the house after having purchased it.

William Morris died on 3 October 1896 at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, London. Jane Morris died on 26 January 1914 while staying at 5 Brock Street, Bath.