Owen Jones (1809-1874) tried to interest manufacturers in making versions of Islamic tile patterns. He had seen and copied them in the mosques and houses of Cairo in Egypt. He did have some success as a tile and mosaic designer in the 1840s. But although some of the simpler abstract patterns were used in homes, usually in hallways, they never became very popular. In Britain, most people liked naturalism and pictorial decoration in interiors. They showed little interest in these more austere geometric forms of decoration.