A modest circular was issued in which the fact was made known that "a
company of historical artists will use their talents in home decoration."

Dealers into whose hands this circular fell, smiled in derision, and the
announcement made no splash in England's artistic waters. But the leaven
was at work which was bound to cause a revolution in the tastes of fifty
million people.

Most of our best moves are accidents, and every good thing begins as
something else. In the beginning there was no expectation of building up a
trade or making a financial success of the business. The idea was simply
that the eight young men who composed the band were to use their influence
in helping one another to secure commissions, and corroborate the views of
doubting patrons as to what was art and what not. In other words, they
were to stand by one another.

Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Arthur Hughes
were painters; Philip Webb an architect; Peter Paul Marshall a
landscape-gardener and engineer; Charles Joseph Faulkner, an Oxford don,
was a designer, and William Morris was an all-round artist--ready to turn
his hand to anything.

These men undertook to furnish a home from garret to cellar in an artistic
way.

Work came, and each set himself to help all the others. From simply
supplying designs for furniture, rugs, carpets and wall-paper they began
to manufacture these things, simply because they could not buy or get
others to make the things they desired.