The illustrator and designer
Walter Crane served as the founding president of the Society for its first three years.
William Morris succeeded Crane as president in 1891., and the Society thereafter chose to reduce the frequency of showings in order to ensure an abundance of materials to display. The 1899 exhibit featured a Morris retrospective. Another successful exhibition was held in 1903, but the Society suffered organizational problems in the new century, with the exhibitions of 1906, 1910, 1912 and 1916 each being held in a different location. Crane died in 1915, and architect and designer
Henry Wilson was president from 1915 to 1922, but the exhibitions failed to recover the critical and artistic success of the 1890s. In 1915,
W. R. Lethaby and other members, recognising the limitations of the Society's devotion to craft methods of production, set up the
Design and Industries Association to improve the standards of British industrial design. In the 1930s it became clear to some members that if the Society was to survive in any form it had to confront the role of the crafts in relation to industry and the place of machinery in craft production. The Society's 1935 exhibition introduced a section devoted to mass-produced articles designed by craftsmen to demonstrate the influence the crafts could have on industry, which brought its exhibitions to the notice of the press again. This move was controversial within the Society and led to some resignations. The Society continued to exhibit periodically until the 1950s and many eminent craftsmen and women were associated with it. In 1960, it merged with the
Cambridgeshire Guild of Craftsmen to form the
Society of Designer Craftsmen, which is still active. ==Notes==