Edward Coley Burne Jones was born in 1833 in Birmingham. He studied theology at Exeter College, Oxford, where he became friends with William Morris, and, like Morris, decided pursue a career in art instead of one in the Church. Burne-Jones became one of the leading figures in the contemporary British art world, closely allied with the pre-Raphaelites and with the Aesthetic movement. A founding member (along with Morris) of the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company, Burne-Jones was a significant force in the rebirth of stained glass design in England and designed a number of notable windows, though he was most known for his paintings. Burne-Jones married Georgiana MacDonald in 1860, with whom he had 2 children, Philip and Margaret. He died in 1898.

One of Burne-Jones' many friends was Cecilia Steele Maxse, the estranged wife of Admiral Frederick Augustus Maxse and the mother of Violet (later Viscountess Milner) and Olive, who, in their own rights, became close friends of Burne-Jones'. Violet, born in 1872, was the youngest Maxse child. She had a great interest in art, and studied in Paris from March 1893-January 1894. In June 1894, she married Lord Edward Cecil, a soldier and foreign service officer with whom she traveled widely. Their marriage was not a particularly happy one, and after Cecil's death in 1918, Violet married Sir Alfred Milner, who died in 1925. After her brother Leo's death in 1929, she took over editorship of the National Review, owned by their family since 1893. She had 2 children with Lord Cecil, George and Helen. She died in 1958.