William Morris was born in Walthamstow, Essex, on 24 March 1834, and raised in a wealthy middle-class family. Although his father died in 1847, the Morris family remained affluent as a result of shares in the Devon Great Consols copper mines. In 1853 Morris began university studies at Oxford University's Exeter College, focusing on Classics. There, he developed a keen interest in Medieval history and Medieval architecture, inspired by Oxford's many medieval buildings. This interest was tied to Britain's growing Medievalist movement, a form of Romanticism that rejected many of the values of Victorian industrial capitalism. For Morris, the Middle Ages represented an era with strong chivalric values and an organic, pre-capitalist sense of community, both of which he deemed preferable to his own period. He was heavily influenced by the writings of art critic John Ruskin, being particularly inspired by his chapter "On the Nature of Gothic Architecture" in the second volume of "The Stones of Venice". Morris adopted Ruskin's philosophy of rejecting the tawdry industrial manufacture of decorative arts and architecture in favour of a return to hand-craftsmanship, raising artisans to the status of artists, and creating art that should be affordable and hand-made, with no hierarchy of artistic mediums.