A scientist from the University of Aberdeen has discovered that William Morris - the well known poet, artist, designer and progenitor of the green movement used a number of toxic chemicals to create many of his beautiful decorative schemes and famous wallpapers.
Results to be published in this week's Science in Culture section of Nature magazine highlight the work of Professor Andy Meharg at the University of Aberdeen Department of Plant and Soil Science. Using a Niton portable X-ray emission analyser, Professor Meharg examined the coloured pigments in early samples of Morris's patterned wallpaper and found them to contain quantities of several toxic chemicals such as arsenic, lead, chromium and mercury.
William Morris was a shareholder and sometime director of the mining company Devon Great Consols, in its day the largest producer of arsenic in the world, whose workers were plagued by arsenic-related illnesses. The environmental pollution caused by this mining operation was vast and persists to this day. Devon Great Consols was the major supplier of arsenic for the production of green pigments, used in Morris's early wallpapers. Arsenic pigments, which were also used extensively in paints and to dye clothes, paper, food and soap were responsible for untold numbers of cases of chronic illness and many deaths.
Professor Meharg relates the paradox of William Morris's political dogma with his business activities, particularly his involvement with the production and use of arsenic. "There is no doubt that William Morris was a utopian idealist whose life was full of contradictions. He was a progenitor of the green movement and decried the environmental and human degradation caused by industrial activity. But he was also a successful capitalist who supplied the bourgeoisie with expensive interior décor. This paradox is most disturbingly evident in his intimate associations with arsenic."