The Birmingham Set, sometimes called the Birmingham Colony, the Pembroke Set or later The Brotherhood, was a group of students at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in the 1850s, most of whom were from

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

or had studied at

King Edward's School, Birmingham King Edward's School (KES) is an independent day school for boys in the British public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by King Edward VI in 1552, it is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Bir ...

. Their importance as a group was largely within the visual arts, where they played a significant role in the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement: The Set were intimately involved in the murals painted on the

Oxford Union Society The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...

in 1857, and members

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

and Charles Faulkner were founding partners of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861.

Activities and development

The group initially met every evening in the rooms of Charles Faulkner in Pembroke College, though by 1856 its dominant figure was Edwin Hatch. The primary interests of the Birmingham Set were initially literary – they were admirers of

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

in particular – and they also read the poetry of Shelley and

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

and the novels of

Thackeray William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel ''Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and th ...

Kingsley Kingsley may refer to: People * Kingsley (given name) * Kingsley (surname) Places Australia * Kingsley, Western Australia Canada * Rural Municipality of Kingsley No. 124, Saskatchewan England * Kingsley, Cheshire * Kingsley, Hampshire *Kingsley ...

and

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

. The turning point in the group's interests took place when Morris and Burne-Jones, and through them the rest of the group, discovered the writings of

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...

and

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

and took to visiting English country churches and making pilgrimages to the medieval cities of France and Belgium. In 1856 members of the Set published twelve monthly issues of the '' Oxford and Cambridge Magazine'', which was created to propagate the group's views on aesthetics and social reform.

Members

Charles Joseph Faulkner Charles Joseph Faulkner (1833–1892) was a British mathematician and fellow of University College, Oxford and a founding partner of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. where he worked with his sisters Kate Faulkner and Lucy Faulkner Orrinsmith. ...

* Cormell Price *

Richard Watson Dixon Richard Watson Dixon (5 May 1833 – 23 January 1900), English poet and divine, son of Dr James Dixon, a Wesleyan minister. Biography He was the eldest son of Dr. James Dixon, a distinguished Wesleyan preacher, by Mary, only daughter of the ...

* Edwin Hatch *William Fulford *Harry MacDonald, brother of the

MacDonald sisters The Macdonald sisters were four English women of part-Scottish descent born during the 19th century, notable for their marriages to well-known men. Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa were the daughters of Reverend George Browne Macdonald (1805–18 ...

References

Bibliography

* {{Citation, last=Naylor, first=Gillian, year=1971, title=The Arts and Crafts Movement: a study of its sources, ideals and influence on design theory, publication-place=London, publisher=Studio Vista, isbn=028979580X, url-access=registration, url=https://archive.org/details/artscraftsmoveme0000nayl Arts and Crafts movement Culture of the University of Oxford Literary societies