SOURCE: "Making Things Well," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4107, December 18, 1981, p. 1460.

In the following essay, a review of a biography, Spalding critiques Gill's sexual attitudes and other aspects of his thinking.

The revival of craft in the high-tech age proves that William Morris's battle with the machine was not as finally lost as it once seemed. Eric Gill argued that handicraft methods would not die out because they met an inherent, indestructible need in human nature. In the last decade a craftsman emerging from the Royal College was more likely to disappear into the Cotswolds than into industry. But if the craft revival is here to stay, so too are the often invidious effects of the machine.

Goods of high quality may be more widely available but Morris's wish is still an ideal: "We are waiting for what must be the work, not the leisure and taste...