William Morris Gallery & Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow, London

The purpose of this website has always been to ensure that the William Morris Gallery is kept open; that the service is not run down or dummed down; that we publicise the gallery to a wide audience and maintain the gallery’s international reputation.

Keep Our Museums Open, The Friends of The William Morris Gallery and tens of thousands of people signed the petition against the part-time opening hours, poor treatment of experienced staff and dumming down of the service have and wrote to Waltham Forest Council in protest.

In response, the council amended the part-time opening hours, which are now restored to full time (10am - 5pm, Weds to Sun) and invested in new posts and publicity for the gallery.

Help shape William Morris Gallery’s future

In March 2009 it was announced that the gallery has successfully won the first stage of Heritage Lottery Funding (£80,000) to draw up plans to further develop William Morris Gallery. Peter Cormack began this process, before his untimely departure from the gallery and in his absense, external consultants were drafted in to help finalise the bid. The Friends have been asked to help raise the money needed to turn the dream into a reality.

The aim is to create a first class visitor facility and centre of excellence for the study of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement. It is an exciting opportunity to see the development of the Gallery with extented exhibition space, better storage facilities for the reserve collection and an enhanced educational space and programme of activities.

The project will help create a sustainable future for this beautiful building and it’s highly important collections.

The Friends are aiming to raise £1 million by Spring 2010. Substaintial matched funding is necessary if a second HLF grant is to be obtained which would enable a more extensive redevelopment to be undertaken.

Keep Our Museums Open is therefore transferring all support to the Friends of William Morris Gallery to help them raise match funding of £1 million.

Please join the Friends, join the Friends Mailing List and the Friends page on Facebook and help spread the word.

Thank you all for you continued support. Together, we have made an enormous difference. This site will remain online, and the history will remind all of the ever present threat of cuts and the need to remain committed and vigilant.

‘News from Nowhere revisited’
by Brian Daubney and Jeremiah Sheehan
15 August - 27 September 2009
Supported by Friends of William Morris Gallery

The Friends have announced their delight at supporting the upcoming exhibition at William Morris Gallery.

This exhibition examines William Morris’s visionary novel ‘News From Nowhere’. Local artist Brian Daubney and American architect Jeremiah Sheehan discover how much of modern London was envisaged in Morris’s utopian dream and Morris’s own words provide a commentary that is often amusing and always thought provoking.

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Navid Akhtar examines the influence of Islamic design and values on the life of the Victorian designer, poet, craftsman and socialist radical William Morris.

Morris was inspired by Turkish ceramics and Persian carpets to create a new movement in British design. For him, the Muslim world had managed to preserve the art of the craftsman and avoid the ills of industrial production. He espoused the philosophy that art should be affordable and hand made; this was already a reality in the Islamic world.

Not stopping at arts and crafts, he was a passionate advocate of social utopianism and believed in the rights of the worker. Today, these ideals have profoundly influenced a new generation of British-born Muslim artists, as they rediscover Morris and look to his artistic work and socialist ideas for inspiration.

See the BBC’s website for more details.

Thursday 9th July 7.00pm 

To coincide with the current exhibition at the gallery, Epping Forest, the Friends of the Gallery present;

The Peoples Forest an illustrated talk by Georgina Green on the history of Epping Forest and the campaign to save it from enclosure and keep it open for all to use.

Throughout its history the people who have lived in the vicinity of Epping Forest have made their mark on the forest and this talk looks at the effects of early man, the Romans, the Saxons, the Medieval period and the Industrial Revolution. The talk concludes with the Victorian fight to save the forest from enclosure and destruction and Morris’s involvement fighting incursions on the peoples forest.

Refreshments, included in the ticket price, will be served before and after the talk. Tickets available from the Friends, tel; 020 85036166, or on the door £5.

Anyone who supports the reopening of St James Street Library as a resource for the whole community, not a drug centre, please come to the scrutiny committee meeting tonight (Weds 1 July), from 7pm at Waltham Forest town hall, Forest Rd.

St James Street Library Campaign found out late last night that the scrutiny committee is meant to discuss the council’s plan to replace our beloved library with a Drug Action Team (DAT) centre tonight. Apparently council officers have invited DAT supporters and police to support the plan. It’s important that we should make our opposition known because, if scrutiny does consider this agenda item tonight, its recommendation will go to the cabinet meeting next week. There’s a very strong lobby inside the council in favour of the DAT centre, so we fear the recommendation may get pushed through, even if councillors haven’t yet received the report they’re supposed to have read.

We oppose turning the library into a DAT centre for many reasons. We’ve been fighting since the library was closed in 2007, to have it reopened as a resource for the whole community, including a library. There is no community centre in the large and deprived area around Coppermill Lane that used to be served by the library, and local people have many great ideas for its use.

As well as its essential function in providing books, the library served as a drop-in centre for old people, a space for students living in overcrowded dwellings to do their homework, and a welcome stop for parents and children on their way home from the four local primary schools. The area has been noted in reports by independent bodies, such as the Prince’s Foundation, as being a deprived area with few facilities even before its only community space, St James Street Library, was closed. The Audit Commission censured the council for closing it without consultation, and without doing the legally required impact assessments eg for disability: St James Street Library was well-used by people with disabilities and had the only disabled toilet at that end of the market.

St James Street Library was closed without warning or consultation, and for the weakest of financial excuses. The saving of £70,000 a year (a bargain for a popular resource) was just a fraction of the £230,000 increase the councillors voted in their own allowances at the same meeting. Meanwhile, the council squandered £3.5 million on a trashy makeover for Walthamstow central library that caused extensive damage to the (listed) building; the council has also dumped nearly a quarter of a million books during the past few years, sending many of them to Edmonton incinerator.

Please come to support us this evening! Don’t give them a chance to say they didn’t know anyone cared about this.

You are invited to a Public meeting on Wednesday 10 June, at Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow, at 7.45pm to discuss the future of the William Morris Gallery

In the last two years there has been a lot of upheaval and change at the Gallery, accompanied by much anger, discussion and debate: budgets have been cut, then restored, staff dismissed and others appointed.

At the root of the problems lies the fact that the world’s premier William Morris collection is owned and financed solely by an impoverished London Borough, an unfair burden in uncertain times.

To help secure its future, group of local residents formed the William Morris Independent Trust Group and, with the help of professional advice and research, have drafted a plan to run the Gallery as an Independent Trust. The Gallery and the collection would still be owned by the Council, and admission would be free as always, but management would be by the Trust, and the budget secure from the ups and downs of Council funding. This structure would make it much easier to attract outside funding, and build the security to keep the Gallery as a world-class institution.

This meeting will see the same presentation already shown to the Council’s Cabinet Member for Arts, Culture and Leisure: everyone who cares about the Gallery is welcome to comment, offer their own ideas, and discuss how to help the Borough’s prime attraction thrive.

Please join us on June 10th.

Martin Duncan-Jones
Michael Gold
Ros Kane
Anita Morse
wmorristrust@yahoo.com

Harmony Hall in Truro Road is off  the High St, near the side entrance to Selbourne Walk.

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With the news that UCKG will be submitting plans again to convert the cinema into a church - the  campaign to save Walthamstow’s last remaining cinema has stepped up  gear. We’re aware that many of the people who visit this site live or work in Waltham Forest and therefore that you will want to get involved. The church is spending vast amounts of money on consultants and PR and many local Councillors have unfortunately bought into this. It’s therefore important that as many people as possible get involved, write to their Councillors, support any action, help by telling friends and family.

On June 13th there is a Children’s demo outside the cinema from 4.15pm, see the McGuffn’s website for  more details.

There are several important websites to be kept up to date with the news, The McGuffin’s Film and Television Society who are leading the campaign, join the Facebook page and follow the campaign on Twitter.

Please note, the meeting due to take place on Thursday 28th May, at St Mary’s Welcome Centre,Walthamstow Village at 7.30 p.m has been cancelled and will be rescheduled soon. Please do pass on this information. Thank you.

The William Morris Independent Trust Group

You are invited to a Public meeting on Thursday 28th May, at St Mary’s Welcome Centre,Walthamstow Village at 7.30 p.m.to discuss the future of the William Morris Gallery.

Over the last 2 years there has been much discussion and debate, sometimes acrimonious, about the future of the William Morris Gallery, which is owned and managed by the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The world’s premier William Morris museum/gallery is solely financed by an impoverished London council, which is unfair and has, inevitably, led to falling standards.

A group of local residents formed the William Morris Independent Trust Group and, with the help of professional advice and research, have drafted a plan to have the Gallery run by an Independent Trust. The Gallery and the collection would still be owned by the Council, and admission would be free as always, but the management would be by the Trust. The use of this organisational structure for the Gallery would allow outside financial investment in the Gallery and the William Morris Gallery could again, become a world-class institution.

The meeting will see the same presentation of the plan that was given to the London Borough of Waltham Forest Cabinet member for Arts, Leisure and Culture, and everyone is welcome to comment, put forward other ideas and discuss how to restore the Gallery to its previous pre-eminence.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting,

Martin Duncan Jones, Michael Gold, Ros Kane, Anita Morse
The William Morris Independent Trust Group
wmorristrust@yahoo.com

Please forward this related campaign news as widely as possible. Thank you.

 This Saturday there is a demonstration outside the EMD/Granada cinema 186 Hoe Street. SATURDAY 18 APRIL AT 8PM

This will be followed by a free film and social event at the Victoria Bar next door to the EMD Cinema. Various short films featuring the EMD and Alfred Hitchcock will be screened alongside some fascinating and revealing footage of particular pertinence to the current campaign.

The council is currently rushing their plans through to allow the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God full use of the building and convert it into a church and training rooms, it is imperative to show support for saving the EMD as the boroughs last cinema.

Church inviting the public to view their plans
Thursday 16 (5:30-8pm) - Friday 17  (4-8pm) April 2009

Prior to the demonstration this Thursday (5:30-8pm) and Friday (4-8pm) the UCKG are exhibiting their plans at St Gabriel’s Church and Family Centre, Havant Road. Note that they haven’t called it a consultation! All the same, they claim that they will take residents’ opinions into account, so don’t be shy. Do challenge them on whatever you care about. That could include: why the building’s so poorly maintained; whether the proposed community space will be affordable and uncensored; how much non-church users could access the main auditorium for films/performances; and their willingness to trade the cinema for an alternative venue.

Then on Saturday night please join a demo on the steps of the cinema at 8pm, followed by a screening at the Victoria pub above the cinema.

Deomonstration Saturday 18 (8pm)
A full report of the recent public meeting on the cinema, with photos, is available on the Mcguffins website, and a new ‘EMD History and Gallery’ page has been added. Please visit the site and view some of the unique images of this beautiful building in our collection. Further images will be added as time allows. http://www.mcguffin.info

COUNCIL TO BORROW £35 MILLION TO BAIL OUT ARCADE DEVELOPMENT?

Waltham Forest’s Cabinet has voted (by a very narrow margin) to borrow at least £35 million to pursue their controversial scheme to redevelop Walthamstow’s former Arcade site on the corner of Hoe Street and High Street E17.

The council’s original development partner St. Modwen has decided against funding the scheme as it would not be profitable in the current financial climate. More details about this story can be found on the News Page at http://www.mcguffin.info