From a drawing in 'The Quiver of Love', Walter Crane, 1876
Source Firkin
Remixed from a drawing in 'Sun Pictures of the Norfolk Broads', Ernest Suffling, 1892.
Source Firkin
Sounds like something from World of Warcraft. Has to be good.
Source Tony Kinard
Here's a new paper-like background for free use on personal and commercial projects (this applies to all background patterns here).
Source V. Hartikainen
A light brushed aluminum pattern for your pleasure.
Source Tim Ward
Formed from a tile based on a drawing from 'Viaggi d'un artista nell'America Meridionale', Guido Boggiani, 1895.
Source Firkin
Nicely executed tiling for an interesting pattern.
Source Ignasi Àvila Padró
Seamless , tileable CC-0 texture. Created by my own, feel free to use wherever you want!
Source Linolafett
A background pattern inspired by designs seen in 'Burghley. The Life of William Cecil', William Charlton, 1857.
Source Firkin
Prismatic Geometric Pattern Background
Source GDJ
A seamless green background texture. The image is distributed under a Creative Commons License (like all of the images here).
Source V. Hartikainen
Remixed from a drawing in 'A Child of the Age', Francis Adams, 1894.
Source Firkin
Same as gray sand but lighter. A sandy pattern with small light dots, and some angled strokes.
Source Atle Mo
Prismatic Hexagonalism Pattern No Background
Source GDJ
Made by distorting a simple pattern using the 'sin waves' plugin for Paint.net and vectorising in Vector Magic
Source Firkin
A tile-able background for websites with paper-like texture and a grid pattern layered on top of it.
Source V. Hartikainen
Number five from the same submitter, makes my job easy.
Source Dima Shiper
A simple but elegant classic. Every collection needs one of these.
Source Christopher Burton
Otis Ray Redding was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout. So you know.
Source Thomas Myrman
A repeating graphic with ancient pattern. I came up with this name/title at last minute, so you may find that there is very little of ancientness in this pattern after all.
Source V. Hartikainen
A seamless chequerboard pattern formed from a tile that can be had in Inkscape by selecting the rectangle and using shift+alt+i. Alternative colour scheme.
Source Firkin
Looks like a technical drawing board: small squares forming a nice grid.
Source We Are Pixel8
To get the tile this is based on, select the rectangle in Inkscape and use shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
The basic shapes never get old. Simple triangle pattern.
Source Atle Mo
From a drawing in 'Art Embroidery', M.S. Lockwood and E. Glaister, 1878.
Source Firkin