Zoom Lecture: William Morris and the Society of the Protection of Ancient Buildings

 

Society of the Protection of Ancient Buildings

Zoom Lecture
March 23, 2025 
2 pm ET

2025 birthday lecture and Toast to Morris by Philip Venning

The west end of St Albans Abbey before the nineteenth century restoration

When William Morris and Philip Webb set up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) in 1877 they founded Britain’s building conservation movement. The Society has saved numerous historic buildings, and greatly influenced policy and practice in the UK and abroad.This aspect of Morris’s work is little known, even though his first biographer, Aymer Vallance, claimed Morris regarded it as more important than anything else he did. Between 1877 and 1895 he attended around 500 SPAB committee and other meetings, wrote letters, visited buildings and promoted the Society’s distinctive philosophy of repair. We will look at Morris’s work for the SPAB, the Society’s later history and current activities.

Philip Venning OBE, MA, FSA
A former journalist, he was full time Secretary (renamed Director) of the SPAB from 1984 to 2012. He was also a Council member of the National Trust; a member of the Expert Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund and of the Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission; and Vice President of the National Churches Trust. He has lived in old houses for most of his life.