Charles Robert Ashbee

Ashbee worked between 1863 and 1942 across architect, graphic designer, university teacher, businessperson and designer and 3 further recorded occupations. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Charles Robert Ashbee studied at Wellington College and King's College. Training under George Frederick Bodley is recorded. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is art craft, textile design and translating activity. Residence is recorded at London. Work by Charles Robert Ashbee is recorded in the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and National Gallery of Victoria.

• Born — 17 May 1863 • Birthplace — Isleworth, United Kingdom • Place of death — Sevenoaks, United Kingdom • Resting Place — St Peter and St Paul Churchyard, Seal, Kent, United Kingdom • Spouse — Janet Elizabeth Forbes (1877–1961) • Children — 4 • Education — Wellington College, King's College, Cambridge

Ashbee was born in 1863 in Isleworth, then just west of the Victorian sprawl of London and now a suburb. He was the first child and only son of businessman Henry Spencer Ashbee, the senior partner in the London branch of the firm of Charles Lavy & Co., and Elizabeth Jenny Lavi (1842–1919), daughter of his German business partner. His parents had married in Elizabeth's hometown of Hamburg, Germany on 27 June 1862. His mother's brother Charles Lavy (1842-1928) inherited the German firm and became a politician. Charles Robert had three sisters Frances Mary (1866–1926), Agnes Jenny (1869–1926) and Elsa (1873–1944) Family life was not happy. As the father became more conservative, his family followed the progressive movement of the era. "The 'excessive education' of his daughters irritated him, his Jewish wife's pro-suffragism infuriated him, and he became estranged from his socialist homosexual son, Charles". Henry Spencer was, like his son after him, well travelled and a writer. He also became a notable erotic bibliophile. Charles Robert 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. Henry and Elisabeth separated in 1893.

• Illustration — The Uplands in Ledbury, Herefordshire, an 1870 home extended by Ashbee in 1905 As an architect, he was willing to do complete house design, including interior furniture and decoration, as well as items such as fireplaces. In the 1890s he renovated The Wodehouse near Wombourne in Staffordshire for Colonel Thomas Shaw-Hellier, commandant of the Royal Military School of Music, adding a billiard room and chapel, amid many external changes. Shaw-Hellier commissioned him in 1907 to build the Villa San Giorgio in Taormina, Sicily, as a little island of England in Italy, hence the name of the patron saint (see History of Taormina). His biographer Fiona MacCarthy judges it "the most impressive of Ashbee's remaining buildings"; it is run as the Hotel Ashbee. He also designed buildings in Budapest and London, including several studios in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and his own family home at 37 Cheyne Walk.

Ashbee also founded the Survey of London. The Oxford Reference (Oxford University Press) provides this summary: "Mindful of the huge losses of historic buildings through redevelopment, he began a process of surveying London buildings that led to the important Survey of London volumes."

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 Press, Endevour (1901) and Prayer Book (1903), both of which are based on Morris's Golden Type. In 1906, Ashbee published A Book of Cottages and Little Houses and, in 1909, Modern English Silverwork. In 1924, after concluding a job as civic advisor to the city of Jerusalem, Ashbee wrote a report titled Jerusalem, 1920-1922, Being the Records of the Pro-Jerusalem Council During the First Two Years of the Civil Administration. 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.

• Illustration — Title page to Ashbee's Jerusalem 1920–1922, London, 1924 In 1918 Ashbee was appointed civic adviser to the British Administration for Palestine, within the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, later Mandatory Palestine, overseeing building works and the protection of historic sites and monuments as the chairman of the Pro-Jerusalem Society. His official title was Honorary Secretary to the Council, which was the leading board of the Society. He summoned his family to Jerusalem, where they lived until 1923. Ashbee served as Civic Adviser to the City of Jerusalem (1919–1922) and as a professional adviser to the Town Planning Commission. Described as "the most pro-Arab and anti-Zionist" of the six British planners, Ashbee's view of the city "was colored by a romantic sense of the vernacular." Aiming to protect this Palestinian vernacular and the city's secular and traditional fabric, Ashbee oversaw conservation and repair work in the city, and revived the craft industry there to repair the damaged Dome of the Rock. His work in Jerusalem was closely linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Preservation Movement and attempted to slow down the progress of the implementation of the Balfour Declaration.

Ashbee has been described as "half-Jewish, Anglican, bisexual, married, Socialist, conservationist, romantic, rebel, fop, and self-described 'practical idealist'". Ashbee was homosexual at a time when sex between men was a criminal offence. He is thought to have been a member of the Order of Chaeronea, a secret society founded in 1897 by the poet and penal reformer George Ives for the cultivation of a homosexual ethos. He certainly belonged to groups that provided support and understanding to homosexuals. In 1898, seemingly to cover his homosexuality, Ashbee married the daughter of a wealthy London stockbroker, Janet Elizabeth Forbes (1877–1961), to whom he admitted his sexual orientation soon after she accepted his proposal. During thirteen years of rocky marriage, which included a serious affair of his wife's, they had four children: Mary, Helen, Prudence, and Felicity. Mary Ashbee, later Ames-Lewis (1911–2004) was born at Chipping Campden; Jane Felicity Ashbee (1913–2008), Helen Christabel Ashbee, later Cristofanetti (1915–1998) and Prudence Margaret Ashbee (1917–1979) were all born at Broad Campden. Ashbee was influenced in his life by the theories of homosexuality developed by Edward Carpenter.

Ashbee died in 1942 at Sevenoaks and was buried at St Peter and St Paul's Church in Seal, Kent, where he was church architect. The internal screen for the church tower was designed by Ashbee.

Charles Robert Ashbee was born on 17 May 1863 in London. Ashbee held the nationality of United Kingdom. Ashbee was educated at Wellington College and King's College. Ashbee studied under George Frederick Bodley. Ashbee worked as architect, graphic designer, university teacher and businessperson, and the authority record catalogues a further 4 occupations under the same name, among them designer, author, jewelry designer and translator. Ashbee was active from 1885 to 1942. Ashbee worked in English. Ashbee is placed by the collections within Arts and Crafts movement. Ashbee died on 23 May 1942 in Sevenoaks. Ashbee is buried at Church of St Peter and St Paul, Seal.