On this day in 1896, William Morris died, at the age of sixty-two. Morris was one of the most talented and respected figures in the Victorian Era, but the superhuman range and pace of his vocations -- painter, architect, designer (stained glass, wallpaper, textiles, furniture ...), craftsman, writer, book-maker, socialist crusader -- caused one physician attending his last days to say that he was dying of "simply being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men." This industry continued through the last months, as much as diabetes, tuberculosis and exhaustion allowed. Morris's last open-air speech was outside Waterloo Station, as one of what The Times described as an "assemblage of Socialists, Nihilists, Anarchists, and outlaws of every European country"; his last public meeting was in support of the Society for Checking Abuses of Public Advertising; his last production for the Kelmscott Press was the famous edition of
