Charles Robert Ashbee
Encyclopedia
Charles Robert Ashbee was an English designer and entrepreneur who was a prime mover of the Arts and Crafts movement
that took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin
and its co-operative structure from the socialism of William Morris
.
. His Jewish mother developed suffragette
views, and his well-educated sisters were progressive as well. Ashbee went to Wellington College
and read history at King's College
, Cambridge from 1883 to 1886, and studied under the architect George Frederick Bodley
.
, one of the original settlement
s set up to alleviate inner city
poverty, in this case, in the slums of Whitechapel
. The fledgling venture was first housed in temporary space but by 1890 had workshops at Essex House, Mile End Road, in the East End, with a retail outlet in the heart of the West End
in fashionable Brook Street
, Mayfair
, more accessible to the Guild's patrons. In 1902 the works moved to Chipping Campden
, in the picturesque Cotswolds
of Gloucestershire
, where a sympathetic community provided local patrons, but where the market for craftsman-designed furniture and metalwork was saturated by 1905. The London County Council
's introduction of the polytechnic institutes
, which took on craftworkers at a minimal charge, was inspired by Ashbee's Guild and School, which it out-competed and drove out of business. The Guild was liquidated in 1907. One of Ashbee's pupils in Mile End was Frank Baines
, later Sir Frank, who was enormously influential in keeping Arts and Crafts alive in 20th-century architecture.
The Guild of Handicraft specialised in metalworking, producing jewellery and enamels as well as hand-wrought copper and wrought ironwork, and furniture. (A widely illustrated suite of furniture was made by the Guild to designs of M. H. Baillie Scott for Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
at Darmstadt
). The School attached to the Guild taught crafts.The Guild operated as a co-operative, and its stated aim was to:
near Wombourne
for Colonel Shaw-Hellier, commandant of the Royal Military School of Music
, who later commissioned him to build the Villa San Giorgio in Taormina
, Sicily
.
Ashbee was involved in book production and literary work. He set up the Essex House Press after Morris's Kelmscott Press closed in 1897, taking on many of the displaced printers and craftsmen. Between 1898 and 1910 the Essex House Press produced more than 70 titles. Ashbee designed two type faces for the Essex House Press, Endevour (1901) and Prayer Book (1903), both of which are based on Morris' Golden Type.
Ashbee wrote two utopian novels influenced by Morris, From Whitechapel to Camelot (1892) and The Building of Thelema (1910), the latter named after the abbey in François Rabelais
' book Gargantua and Pantagruel
. Ashbee also founded the Survey of London
.
In 1918 he was appointed civic adviser to the British Mandate of Palestine, overseeing building works and the protection of historic sites and monuments as the chairman of the Pro-Jerusalem Society
. He summoned his family to Jerusalem, where they lived until 1923.
His papers and journals are at King's College.
amateur career as an enthusiastically heterosexual pornographer, Ashbee was gay. He came of age in a time when homosexuality was illegal and "the love that dare not speak its name". He is thought to have been a member of the Order of Chaeronea
, a secret society
founded in 1897 by George Ives
for the cultivation of a homosexual ethos. To cover his homosexuality
, he married Janet Forbes, daughter of a wealthy London stockbroker. CRA, as he was known, had admitted his sexual orientation to his future wife shortly after he proposed. They wed in 1898 and, after 13 years of rocky marriage (including a serious affair on the part of Janet), had children: Mary, Helen, Prue and Felicity.
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
that took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
and its co-operative structure from the socialism of William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
.
Early life
He was the son of businessman and erotic bibliophile Henry Spencer AshbeeHenry Spencer Ashbee
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer, and bibliographer, notorious for his massive, clandestine three volume bibliography of erotic literature written under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.-Life:...
. His Jewish mother developed suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
views, and his well-educated sisters were progressive as well. Ashbee went to Wellington College
Wellington College, Berkshire
-Former pupils:Notable former pupils include historian P. J. Marshall, architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, impressionist Rory Bremner, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, author Sebastian Faulks, language school pioneer John Haycraft, political journalist Robin Oakley, actor Sir Christopher...
and read history at King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, Cambridge from 1883 to 1886, and studied under the architect George Frederick Bodley
George Frederick Bodley
George Frederick Bodley was an English architect working in the Gothic revival style.-Personal life:Bodley was the youngest son of William Hulme Bodley, M.D. of Edinburgh, physician at Hull Royal Infirmary, Kingston upon Hull, who in 1838 retired to his wife's home town, Brighton, Sussex, England....
.
Guild and School of Handicraft
Ashbee set up his Guild and School of Handicraft in 1888 in London, while a resident at Toynbee HallToynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall is a building in Tower Hamlets, East London which is the home of a charity working to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on eradicating poverty and promoting social inclusion....
, one of the original settlement
Settlement movement
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...
s set up to alleviate inner city
Inner city
The inner city is the central area of a major city or metropolis. In the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland, the term is often applied to the lower-income residential districts in the city centre and nearby areas...
poverty, in this case, in the slums of Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
. The fledgling venture was first housed in temporary space but by 1890 had workshops at Essex House, Mile End Road, in the East End, with a retail outlet in the heart of the West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
in fashionable Brook Street
Brook Street
Brook Street is one of the principal streets on the Grosvenor Estate in the exclusive central London district of Mayfair. It was developed in the first half of the 18th century and runs from Hanover Square to Grosvenor Square. The continuation from Grosvenor Square to Park Lane is called Upper...
, Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
, more accessible to the Guild's patrons. In 1902 the works moved to Chipping Campden
Chipping Campden
Chipping Campden is a small market town within the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. It is notable for its elegant terraced High Street, dating from the 14th century to the 17th century...
, in the picturesque Cotswolds
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
of Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, where a sympathetic community provided local patrons, but where the market for craftsman-designed furniture and metalwork was saturated by 1905. The London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
's introduction of the polytechnic institutes
Polytechnic (United Kingdom)
A polytechnic was a type of tertiary education teaching institution in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became universities which meant they could award their own degrees. The comparable institutions in Scotland were...
, which took on craftworkers at a minimal charge, was inspired by Ashbee's Guild and School, which it out-competed and drove out of business. The Guild was liquidated in 1907. One of Ashbee's pupils in Mile End was Frank Baines
Frank Baines
Sir Frank Baines, KCVO, CBE, FRIBA was at one time the architect heading Her Majesty's Office of Works.His most famous work was Thames House and its neighbour Imperial Chemical House in London, England...
, later Sir Frank, who was enormously influential in keeping Arts and Crafts alive in 20th-century architecture.
The Guild of Handicraft specialised in metalworking, producing jewellery and enamels as well as hand-wrought copper and wrought ironwork, and furniture. (A widely illustrated suite of furniture was made by the Guild to designs of M. H. Baillie Scott for Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
Ernest Louis Charles Albert William , was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine from 1892 until 1918...
at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
). The School attached to the Guild taught crafts.The Guild operated as a co-operative, and its stated aim was to:
- "seek not only to set a higher standard of craftsmanship, but at the same time, and in so doing, to protect the status of the craftsman. To this end it endeavours to steer a mean between the independence of the artist— which is individualistic and often parasitical— and the trade-shop, where the workman is bound to purely commercial and antiquated traditions, and has, as a rule, neither stake in the business nor any interest beyond his weekly wage".
Other work
Ashbee himself was willing to do complete house design, including interior furniture and decoration, as well as items such as fireplaces. He worked on The WodehouseThe Wodehouse
The Wodehouse is a country house near Wombourne, Staffordshire, notable as the seat of the Georgian landscape designer and musicologist Sir Samuel Hellier and, a century later, Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier, director of the Royal Military School of Music. For almost 200 years the family...
near Wombourne
Wombourne
Wombourne is a very large village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, 4 miles south-west of Wolverhampton. Local affairs are run by a parish council. At the 2001 census it had a population of 13,691...
for Colonel Shaw-Hellier, commandant of the Royal Military School of Music
Royal Military School of Music
The Royal Military School of Music in Twickenham, west London, trains musicians for the British Army's twenty-nine bands. It is part of the Corps of Army Music...
, who later commissioned him to build the Villa San Giorgio in Taormina
Taormina
Taormina is a comune and small town on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy, in the Province of Messina, about midway between Messina and Catania. Taormina has been a very popular tourist destination since the 19th century...
, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.
Ashbee was involved in book production and literary work. He set up the Essex House Press after Morris's Kelmscott Press closed in 1897, taking on many of the displaced printers and craftsmen. Between 1898 and 1910 the Essex House Press produced more than 70 titles. Ashbee designed two type faces for the Essex House Press, Endevour (1901) and Prayer Book (1903), both of which are based on Morris' Golden Type.
Ashbee wrote two utopian novels influenced by Morris, From Whitechapel to Camelot (1892) and The Building of Thelema (1910), the latter named after the abbey in François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
' book Gargantua and Pantagruel
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father and his son and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein...
. Ashbee also founded the Survey of London
Survey of London
The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of the former County of London. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an Arts-and-Crafts architect and social thinker, and was motivated by a desire to record and preserve London's ancient monuments...
.
In 1918 he was appointed civic adviser to the British Mandate of Palestine, overseeing building works and the protection of historic sites and monuments as the chairman of the Pro-Jerusalem Society
Pro-Jerusalem Society
Pro-Jerusalem Society was a society established in 1918 in Jerusalem. It was founded by Sir Ronald Storrs, Governor of Jerusalem during the British Mandate for Palestine, and Charles Robert Ashbee, an architect...
. He summoned his family to Jerusalem, where they lived until 1923.
His papers and journals are at King's College.
Sexuality, marriage, children
Despite his father'sHenry Spencer Ashbee
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer, and bibliographer, notorious for his massive, clandestine three volume bibliography of erotic literature written under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.-Life:...
amateur career as an enthusiastically heterosexual pornographer, Ashbee was gay. He came of age in a time when homosexuality was illegal and "the love that dare not speak its name". He is thought to have been a member of the Order of Chaeronea
Order of Chaeronea
The Order of Chaeronea was a secret society for the cultivation of a homosexual moral, ethical, cultural and spiritual ethos. It was founded by George Cecil Ives in 1897, as a result of his realisation that homosexuals would not be accepted openly in society and must therefore have a means of...
, a secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
founded in 1897 by George Ives
George Cecil Ives
George Ives was a German-English poet, writer, penal reformer and early gay rights campaigner.-Life and career:...
for the cultivation of a homosexual ethos. To cover his homosexuality
Lavender marriage
Lavender marriage is a type of male-female marriage of convenience in which the couple are not both heterosexual and conceal the homosexual or bisexual orientation of one or both spouses...
, he married Janet Forbes, daughter of a wealthy London stockbroker. CRA, as he was known, had admitted his sexual orientation to his future wife shortly after he proposed. They wed in 1898 and, after 13 years of rocky marriage (including a serious affair on the part of Janet), had children: Mary, Helen, Prue and Felicity.
See also
- Birmingham Guild and School of HandicraftsBirmingham Guild and School of HandicraftsBirmingham Guild of Handicraft was an arts & crafts organisation operating in Birmingham, England. Its motto was 'By Hammer and Hand'.It began as a loose part of the Birmingham Kyrle Society, then became a more fully formed group within the Kyrle Society in 1890, under the leadership of the...
, which was modelled on Ashbee's Guild and School of Handicraft. - Edward CarpenterEdward CarpenterEdward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....
(1844–1929), proponent of gay rights and the simple life
Further reading
- Crawford, A. 1986. C.R. Ashbee, Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist (Yale University Press)
- MacCarthy, F. 1981. Simple Life: C.R. Ashbee in the Cotswolds (University of California Press)
External links
- Charles Robert Ashbee
- Victorian Web: C. R. Ashbee, an overview
- Charles Robert Ashbee on-line; guide to illustrations
- Toynbee Hall