About Philip Webb (1831 – 1915)

Philip Webb (1831 – 1915) was a Pre-Raphaelite architect and designer.  In 1854 he met William Morris and in 1861 became a founder member of   Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. for whom he helped design church furnishings, embroideries and drawings for printed textiles.

In 1859 Morris commissioned Webb to design his home ‘Red House’.

Philip Speakman Webb was an English architect — sometimes called the 'Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture'.

Born in Oxford, Webb studied at Aynho in Northamptonshire and was then articled to firms of builder-architects in Wolverhampton and Reading, Berkshire. He then moved to London where he eventually became a junior assistant for G. E. Street. While there he met William Morris in 1856 and then started his own practice in 1858.

He is particularly noted as the designer of Red House at Bexleyheath, south-east London in 1859 for William Morris, and — towards the end of his career — the house Standen (near East Grinstead in West Sussex). These were among several works in his favoured niche: country houses.

William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were three of his fellow partners in the interior decorating and furnishing business, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., later to become Morris & Co.

Webb and Morris formed an important part of the Arts and Crafts movement, and founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. Webb also joined Morris's revolutionary Socialist League, becoming its treasurer.