Philip Webb (1831- 1915)

Philip Speakman Webb was born in Oxford on 12 January 1831, the son of a doctor; his grandfather was Thomas Webb, a well-known medallist in Birmingham. He became senior clerk in the office of architect George Edmund Street, Oxford where he met William Morris, a colleague who became a lifelong friend.

In August 1858 he joined Morris and Charles Faulkner in France, rowing down the Seine from Paris (in a boat sent over from Oxford). During this trip the plan was conceived for Red House, Morris's new home at Bexleyheath in Kent. Begun in 1859, this remarkable building, in red-brick vernacular style, established Webb's reputation - one of his obituarists wrote that it "marks the birth of modern domestic architecture". Webb also designed all its furniture and fittings, down to the candlesticks and table glass, and he played a crucial role in the early work of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company from its establishment in April 1861.

Webb's work as an architect consisted mostly of domestic, though often substantial, buildings, such as Clouds, Wiltshire, for the Wyndham family (1879-1886). He constructed new houses for several artists, including Val Prinsep, Boyce and G. F. Watts; his only church, at Brampton in Cumberland (1875), was filled with some of Morris and Company's finest stained glass. In 1877 he helped Morris launch the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. One of his last designs was for the ceremonial mace for the University of Birmingham. He died in Sussex in 1915.