May Morris (1862 - 1938)

May Morris was born in 25 March 1862 at Red House, Bexleyheath, and was named Mary as she was born on the Feast of the Annunciation. May learned to embroider from her mother and her aunt Bessie Burden, who had been taught by William Morris. In 1881, she enrolled at the National Art Training School, the precursor of the Royal College of Art, to study embroidery. In 1885, aged 23, she became the director of the embroidery department at her father's enterprise Morris & Co..In 1886, May fell in love with Henry Halliday Sparling (1860-1924), the secretary of the Socialist League. Despite her mother's concerns about her future son-on-law, they married 14 June 1890 at Fulham Register Office. The marriage broke down in 1894 over her affair with a former lover, the playwright George Bernard Shaw. The Sparlings were divorced in 1898 and May resumed her maiden name.She edited her father's Collected Works in 24 volumes for Longmans, Green and C