It was when Morris attended Oxford University that he met his close friend Edward Burne-Jones, who then helped introduced him to artists in the pre-Raphaelite movement, including Gabrielle Rossetti. 

After they graduated, and Morris married his wife Jane Burden, he then got his friend Phillip Webb, an architect to build him a home in the countryside in Kent, which he called Red House. He decorated the house himself, helped by a few of his artist friends. It was the success of how beautiful Morris’ house that encouraged the group to create their own company, that they named, “Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.” The company were to produce domestic furnishings such as stained glass and tiles, and later when Morris couldn’t find any wallpaper he liked, they made that too.

The Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was founded in 1861, two years after Morris married Burden, and was dissolved between 1875-1877 when the company became exclusively Morris’ and was then aptly renamed, Morris & Co.