Lewis Foreman Day was a founder member of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society and one of the most commercially aware and successful designers of his generation. Born in Peckham Rye, into a Quaker family, he was educated in Brighton, France and Germany and then became a stained glass designer for Clayton & Bell. In 1870 he started his own business designing textiles, wallpapers, stained glass, embroidery, carpets, pottery, tiles and book-covers. He and the group of artists he gathered around him formed the Art Workers' Guild in 1884 of which Day was later Master and the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society 1888. Day taught, lectured, examined and was the author of some widely influential books on pattern-making, design and ornamental design. He was a regular contributor to the "Art Journal" and the "Magazine of Art". Lewis Day recognised that many wallpaper covering were beyond the means of the working classes and set about creating designs that could be made more cheaply by machines instead of hand printing methods.