Who was Charles Robert Ashbee? (1863-1942)

The son of a wealthy businessman and Charles Robert Ashbee was educated at Cambridge and trained with the architect George Frederick Bodley, by 1888 Ashbee had set up the Guild of Handicraft in London, making arts and crafts woodwork, leatherwork (after guidance from Georg Hulbe), metalwork and jewellery. The Guild showed their work at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1889 and also at the Vienna Secession Exhibition in 1900. In 1902 Ashbee moved the Guild, together with the workmen and their families totalling 150 people, to Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds in order to become immersed-in and learn from rural craft and traditions. By 1907 the Guild's weak finances necessitated it's liquidation. By this time however, Ashbee's designs combined with the quality of the Guild's work ensured it's influence and reputation would go on to influence design and craft for a generation. He founded the Essex House Press following the collapse of William Morris' Kelmscott Press in 1897 and in 1900 he founded the survey of London. 

Ref. Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design, From Pugin to Mackintosh, Appendix of Architects, Designers and Manufacturers, pages 280-298, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd, 1993.

Court Barn Museum in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire is the museum specialising in Ashbee's work for the Guild of Handicraft in the area. Paul is proud to have been a trustee of this museum 2022 - 2023

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