Useful and beautiful – new Caroline Simpson Library niche display
Published on Friday 24 July 2026
The new display in the niche just outside the Caroline Simpson Library gives visitors a chance to see an original Morris & Co chair with an Australian provenance.
Showcased in the niche opposite the door to the Caroline Simpson Library is a significant recent acquisition – a ‘Rossetti’ chair, made by the famous London firm Morris & Co. The chair is an example of the type of affordable yet well-designed furniture being produced by Morris & Co at the end of the 19th century – and it has a fascinating Australian provenance.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris (1834–1896) was the co-founder of Morris & Company, an English firm that cemented the artist’s legacy as the best-known proponent of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Few designers have known such enduring popularity and had such a lasting impact. Founded in 1861, the company was guided by an ethos of craftsmanship, functionality and beauty. It sold a wide range of objects, including furniture, tapestries, carpets, furnishing textiles and wallpapers.
Morris & Co produced large-scale interior decorative schemes for British clients, but it also had a major client in South Australia – the Barr Smith family. Beginning in 1884, three generations of the Barr Smith family purchased from the British firm entire decorative schemes for their seven homes in and around Adelaide. The family’s relationship with Morris & Co would last until 1929 and cement the Barr Smiths as the firm’s most significant patrons outside of Britain.
Robert Barr Smith (1824–1915) was one of Adelaide’s wealthiest men, amassing a fortune from his shipping, pastoralist and mining enterprises. While in London in 1884, he and his wife, Joanna, went on their first spending spree at Morris & Co. Included in this purchase were no less than 200 rush-seated chairs, known as ‘Rossetti’ chairs.
The chairs were shipped back to the Barr Smiths’ Adelaide home ‘Torrens Park’, to fill the newly built private theatre Robert had designed to amuse his three theatrical children. The theatre included a stage, stage machinery, sets, dressing rooms, and an auditorium large enough to accommodate the 200 chairs (and guests). Between theatrical performances, the chairs could be removed to allow space for balls and dancing.1
The ‘Rossetti’ chair was designed in 1863 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artistic circle. This model of chair was incredibly popular, and continued to be produced into the 20th century. The Caroline Simpson Library holds a copy of a Morris & Co furniture trade catalogue from 1912 that shows the ‘Rossetti’ chair, along with other rush-seated furniture in the Sussex range.
The chair on display was generously donated to the library by its owner, whose family has a close relationship with the Barr Smiths. It adds to our collection of significant Australian-provenanced furniture, and our understanding of the impact of the Arts & Crafts Movement in Australia.
Note
- Joanna and Robert: The Barr Smiths’ life in letters, 1853–1919, The Barr Smith Press, Adelaide, 1996, p69.
Mel Flyte
Collections Discovery Assistant, Caroline Simpson Library
Growing up in rural NSW on Wiradjuri country, Mel’s childhood was spent undertaking her own archaeological excavations in the creek bed on her family’s property. Old bottles, cow bones, and pieces of rusty farm equipment were all exciting discoveries capable of revealing stories of the past. School holidays were punctuated with long car trips with her mum to see blockbuster exhibitions in Canberra and Sydney, so galleries and museums have always felt familiar. Studies in archaeology and art history have inspired Mel’s passion for objects and their ability to elicit emotions and tell stories.