Embroidered Minds is a collaboration between award-winning authors, artists, doctors and historians to explore the effects, both negative and positive, that epilepsy may have had on William Morris’s family - effects still relevant to families today.

Central to Embroidered Minds is the ‘conspiracy of silence’ around Jane and William Morris’s eldest daughter Jenny, who suffered from epilepsy, an enormous stigma during Victorian times. Following an elusive paper trail through libraries, medical archives, patients’ files, private letters and diaries, we have uncovered previously hidden aspects of the Morris family, their Pre-Raphaelite circle, and the ground-breaking Bloomsbury neurologists close to that circle.

Our exploration of the Morris story includes a serialised mystery novel, EMBROIDERED MINDS of the MORRIS WOMEN, as well as events and art exhibitions which adapt the book’s narrative to reflect places in which they are shown.

Did Jenny Morris inherit epilepsy from her father?

George Bernard Shaw, the Morris family’s close friend and socialist ally, believed so, asserting it in a 1949 article for the Observer. The novel’s author Leslie Forbes agreed with Shaw, and she suffered from epilepsy herself. But solid proof of William Morris having the condition is impossible to find - so far. More interesting is whether epilepsy would have enhanced his creativity, perhaps even led to his passionate support for social reform. One thing we can be sure of: the stigma of epilepsy altered the Morris women’s lives forever.