The plaque was unveiled on 19 October 2007 by Dr Jan Marsh, President of the William Morris Society. It is erected on the modern wall of the Hertford College building in St Helen’s Passage (off New College Lane) where some of the dwellings had stood.
Caine quotes,, Rossetti's comment on somewhat different circumstances: 'To marry one woman and then find out when it is too late, that you love another is thedeepest tragedy that can enter into a man's life.' Caine's Recollections ofDante Gamel Rossetti, 1882. published four months after Rossetti's death,was silent on these matters.
Jane was 'discovered' in 1857 with Bessie (her sister) at the theatre in Oxford. At the time Oxford did not have a permanent theatre and this was the Drury Lane touring company who performed in the gymnasium in Oriel Street. Jan Marsh says the play was probably Ben Bolt which I can't trace. It was not very respectable for girls on their own to visit the theater until the end of the century. According to]. W. Mackail, Life of William Morris) OUP ed. 1950, i, '40,it was Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones who first met Jane Burden. LadyBurne-Jones, in her Memorials of Edward Burne-fones, 1904. i, 168, states thatRossetti, Burne-Jones, Arthur Hughes and William Morris were all at thetheatre together when the meeting took place.
