The eldest of seven children, William de Morgan was born in 1839 and showed early promise as an artist. During his formal education at the Royal Academy Schools he met influential artists like Simeon Solomon and Henry Holiday.
In 1862 Holiday introduced de Morgan to William Morris, Morris & Co. being only two years old at this point. De Morgan started work for the firm, designing stained glass with Burne-Jones and decorating tiles with Morris designs. During his work with glass De Morgan noticed that if silver nitrate stain was fired at the wrong temperature on the glass it would reduce and produce an iridescence on the surface.
Fascinated by this lustrous effect he began experimenting with glass and ceramics, buying blank tiles and plates, decorating and firing them in a makeshift kiln at his home in Fitzroy Square, activity which subsequently started a fire and burnt the roof off. Doubtless this unfortunate event precipitated a move to Chelsea in 1872, marking the end of his stained glass career. It also marked the beginning of his own business producing tiles and other ceramics to his own designs. His tile designs can broadly be categorised as plants and flowers, usually of Middle Eastern influence, exotic or fantastical animals and medieval galleons at sea.
Although he made his own tiles he also bought blank tiles, ‘pouncing’, or dusting pigment through pricked holes in the design onto the surface of the glazed tile, before decorating with the lustre and firing again.
Towards the end of his career, de Morgan became a partner with the architect Halsey Ricardo and the pair received several significant commissions, including Debenham House in London in 1905. Sharing similar views to de Morgan, Ricardo sought to bring life to surfaces through vibrant use of colour and pattern. By this time, de Morgan had mastered the more technical aspects of his craft, combining complex triple lustre glazes and intense underglaze decorations which did not alter during the firing process.
De Morgan went on to produce tiles for many large commissions. After his period operating at Merton Abbey (1882-8) he moved the business nearer to his home at Fulham. By the turn of the century his designs had fallen out of fashion and he stopped production in 1907 lamenting that...
“All my life I have been trying to make beautiful things...and now that I can nobody wants them.”
Despite this setback he managed to change his career late in life and became a successful novelist.