Château near Bourlon
© the artist's estate. Image credit: The Regimental Museum of The Royal Welsh

Château near Bourlon 1917

Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)

The Regimental Museum of The Royal Welsh

Painter, stained glass artist and illustrator, born in Cowbridge, Glamorgan. Was married in 1906 to the artist Gertrude Alice Meredith Williams, who died in 1934. He studied at Slade School of Fine Art and in Italy and France. During World War I he served in the Army in France and completed work based on his Somme front experiences. Work by Williams and his wife is at the Scottish National War Museum in Edinburgh. He painted widely in France and showed in Liverpool and elsewhere, sometimes signing as M M Williams.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)

Artworks by Morris Meredith Williams

  • Château near Bourlon
    Château near Bourlon Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)
    The Regimental Museum of The Royal Welsh
  • L'été mourant
    L'été mourant Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)
    Walker Art Gallery
  • Sir Donald Tovey (1875–1940), in Concert
    Sir Donald Tovey (1875–1940), in Concert Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)
    National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait
  • Calonne, near Loos
    Calonne, near Loos Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)
    National Army Museum
  • British Soldiers amongst the Ruins at Monchy-le-Preux
    British Soldiers amongst the Ruins at Monchy-le-Preux Morris Meredith Williams (1881–1973)
    National Army Museum

Find out more

Gertrude Alice Meredith Williams (wife)

Morris Meredith Williams [also known as Maurice Meredith Williams] was born in Cowbridge, Glamorgan, Wales on 10 September 1881 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London; and, from 1903 to 1905, at the Académie Julian in Paris. Whilst in Paris he met the sculptor Gertrude Alice Williams (1877-1934) who shared the same surname and whom he subsequently married in 1906.

Following his return to Britain he embarked on a career as a painter, stained glass designer, decorative artist and illustrator. In 1905 he was appointed art master at Fettes College, Edinburgh, a post he held until c.1915.

He began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in 1906 and continued to do so frequently until 1937, He also exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours in Edinburgh; and at the Paris Salon.

During World War One he served as a commissioned officer in the Army in France. In 1918 he was assigned to a camouflage unit. He documented his wartime experiences in a series of drawings and paintings, some of which are now in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.

Following the war he and Alice worked on commissions for several war memorials, notable among which were the Paisley War Memorial which they designed in collaboration with the architect Robert Lorimer (1924), and the Shine in the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh (1927), again designed in collaboration with Lorimer.

Morris illustrated a number of books including The Scottish Fairy Book by Elizabeth Wilson Grierson (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1910); The Italian Fairy Book by Anne MacDonell (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1911); and Anselm by Ethel Mary Wilmot-Buxton (London: G. G. Harrap & Co,, 1915).

In 1929 Morris and Alice moved from Edinburgh to Devon and settled at North Wyke in North Tawton.

Morris Meredith Williams died in Romansleigh, South Moulton, Devon on 10 July 1973.

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