Why did the Oxford Union mural project help inspire arts and crafts design?

The 1857 project to decorate the Oxford Union debating chamber with murals depicting Arthurian legend was a pivotal moment in the development of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Although the project ultimately failed due to the artists' lack of technical knowledge and experience with mural painting, it was highly significant because it suggested that the scope of art could be expanded to include the crafts. This collaborative effort, led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and involving William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, helped shift their focus toward the ambition of reforming the applied arts of design.1

This experience, combined with their subsequent work furnishing and decorating Morris’s Red House, directly inspired the group to found an association of fine art workmen, which became the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company in 1861.12