A “unique” autographed picture of radical socialist and industrialist William Morris has been discovered by a Merton councillor.

While recently rummaging through the cupboards in William Morris House, in The Broadway, Wimbledon, Councillor Peter Walker found the large framed photograph anchored to the back of a cupboard.

Morris was a utopian socialist but also a leading industrialist in the nineteeneth century who established a large tapestry works at Merton Abbey Mills in 1881.

Coun Walker said the portrait is probably unique and features hand-written notes by Morris daughter, May Morris, who worked for her father at his Merton Abbey works as Director of Embroidery.

He said: “The picture frame was positioned so that the back of the frame was only visible.

“Her note reveals that sometime after the house opened, as meeting rooms for the Labour Party and community groups in 1922, those running the house had requested a picture to hang in the house named after her father.“

Ms May died in 1938 after becoming the mistress of playwright George Bernard Shaw, who had himself sent a signed picture to hang in William Morris House.

Her note indicated she asked her father’s collaborator, Sir Emery Walker (died 1933), to supply the portrait and it has been owned by William Morris House ever since.

Coun Walker, who represents Figge’s Marsh ward in Mitcham on Merton Council, lives in Caroline Road, Wimbledon and is chairman of the co-operative trust which runs the house.

This September will mark the 90th anniversary of the opening of the building in 1922, when the house will host its annual William Morris Lecture on the topic of Wimbledon’s Suffragettes.

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