17 Facts About Lily Yeats

Susan Mary Yeats, known as Lily Yeats, was an embroiderer associated with the Celtic Revival.

Lily Yeats's siblings were William Butler, Jack and Elizabeth Yeats.

In late 1874 the Lily Yeats family moved to 14 Edith Villas, West Kensington, London.

The Yeats family moved to Howth, County Dublin in 1881, where Lily enrolled in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art along with her sister Elizabeth in 1883.

The Lily Yeats family moved to Eardley Crescent, South Kensington, Lily Yeats became ill and was sent to live with relatives.

Lily Yeats eventually went to live with her aunt Elizabeth Pollexfen Orr and her invalided mother in Huddersfield in 1887.

Money was tight, and Lily Yeats was offered an opportunity to learn embroidery in the style propounded by Morris, which would become known as art needlework.

Lily Yeats worked for a time as a governess at Hyere in the south of France.

Lily Yeats continued to work under May Morris for six years, but their relationship was strained In 1895, Lily Yeats caught typhoid fever while in France, and her health remained uncertain for the remainder of the decade.

Lily Yeats ran the embroidery department, which created textiles for church decoration and domestic use.

Gleeson retained the Dun Emer name, and the Lily Yeats sisters established Cuala Industries at nearby Churchtown, which ran a small press, the Cuala Press, and an embroidery workshop.

William Butler Yeats's wife George, helped Lily run the embroidery arm of the studio which produced clothing and linens.

The Lily Yeats sisters lived together through their adult lives, albeit contentiously.

In 1923, Lily Yeats fell dangerously ill with what was believed to be tuberculosis while on holiday in London, and her brother lodged her in a London nursing home in July, where she remained until the following April.

Lily Yeats's health deteriorated again in 1931, and the decision was made to dissolve the embroidery branch of Cuala.

Lily Yeats continued to sell embroidered pictures in the following years.

Lily Yeats died at her residence in Churchtown, Dublin on January 5,1949.