William Morris, News from Nowhere, and the Hammersmith Bridge: Visual Encounters

Abstract This article discusses a central symbol in William Morris’ News from Nowhere (1890): that of the ‘bridge’. I argue that Morris’ use of the Hammersmith Suspension Bridge as a ‘gateway’ to his imagined journey up the river Thames to Lechlade was stimulated by the alterations and rebuilding work carried out on the bridge in the 1880s. The article traces the debates and developments surrounding the bridge during the period when Morris had moved into his Hammersmith house (Guest’s lodgings at the start of the novel), which enjoyed a view of the bridge from its windows. In response to the industrial bridge architecture of the nineteenth century, Morris describes a future where the bridges of the Thames have returned to something like the medieval models he espouses. The article follows the route of Guest’s Thames boat journey in Nowhere, describing the contemporary bridges Morris mentions in the text, and considering aspects of the transformation or disappearance of these in Nowhere. As Guest reaches the Upper Thames, his future world and the present day merge in the descriptions of the medieval bridges that survive in both his own day and the utopian future, providing an ironic condemnation of the capitalist Victorian architecture and an oblique argument for conservation concerns. The metaphor of the ‘bridge’ becomes crucial to his political position, bridging his medieval idealism to his modern socialism. The essay provides an image gallery of the bridges in the novel.