Birmingham Set
{{Short description|Group of students that played a significant role in the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement}}
{{Distinguish|Birmingham Group (artists)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
The Birmingham Set, sometimes called the Birmingham Colony,{{Harvnb|Naylor|1971|p=96}} the Pembroke Set or later The Brotherhood, was a group of students at the University of Oxford in England in the 1850s, most of whom were from Birmingham or had studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham.{{Citation|last=MacCarthy|first=Fiona|year=2004|contribution=Morris, William (1834–1896), designer, author, and visionary socialist|contribution-url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19322|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|edition=Online|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com|accessdate=2011-06-04}} Their importance as a group was largely within the visual arts, where they played a significant role in the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement: The Set were intimately involved in the murals painted on the Oxford Union Society in 1857, and members William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Charles Faulkner were founding partners of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861.
Activities and development
The group initially met every evening in the rooms of Charles Faulkner in Pembroke College,{{Citation|last=Whyte|first=William|year=2006|contribution=Faulkner, Charles Joseph (1833–1892), university teacher and associate of William Morris|contribution-url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75608|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|edition=Online|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com|accessdate=2011-06-04}} though by 1856 its dominant figure was Edwin Hatch.{{Citation|last=Hare|first=Humphrey|year=1949|title=Swinburne: a biographical approach|publication-place=London|publisher=H. F. & G. Witherby|page=38|oclc=361619|url=https://books.google.com/books?ei=60DqTbnaFsap8QPJ64SkAQ|accessdate=2011-06-04}}
The primary interests of the Birmingham Set were initially literary – they were admirers of Tennyson in particular – and they also read the poetry of Shelley and Keats and the novels of Thackeray, Kingsley and Dickens.{{Harvnb|Naylor|1971|pp=96–97}} The turning point in the group's interests took place when Morris and Burne-Jones, and through them the rest of the group, discovered the writings of Thomas CarlyleMackail, J. W. (2011). The Life of William Morris. New York: Dover Publications. p. 38. {{ISBN|978-0-486-28793-5}}. and John Ruskin and took to visiting English country churches and making pilgrimages to the medieval cities of France and Belgium.{{Harvnb|Naylor|1971|p=97}}
In 1856 members of the Set published twelve monthly issues of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, which was created to propagate the group's views on aesthetics and social reform.{{Citation|last=Fleming|first=P. C.|year=2008|title=The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine|series=The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti|publisher=NINES - Nineteenth-century Scholarship Online|url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/ap4.o93.raw.html|accessdate=2013-04-29}}
Members
- Charles Joseph Faulkner
- Edward Burne-Jones
- William Morris
- Cormell Price
- Richard Watson Dixon
- Edwin Hatch
- William Fulford
- Harry MacDonald, brother of the MacDonald sisters{{Cite web |title=The Macdonald Sisters |url=http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/genealogy/Macdonald/page2.htm |access-date=2022-03-01 |website=www.historywebsite.co.uk}}
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{Citation|last=Naylor|first=Gillian|year=1971|title=The Arts and Crafts Movement: a study of its sources, ideals and influence on design theory|publication-place=London|publisher=Studio Vista|isbn=028979580X|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/artscraftsmoveme0000nayl}}
Category:Arts and Crafts movement