Sir Bernard Albert Ashley (11 August 1926 – 14 February 2009) was an English businessman and engineer. He was the husband of
Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley (née Mountney; 7 September 1925 – 17 September 1985) was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She originally made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s ...
, and was her business partner from the founding of their fashion-textiles-centred business.
An engineer with a love of trains, planes and boats, Ashley was often portrayed in the media as a businessman instead of a designer – but he had a huge love of colour and design.
He had interests in Laura Ashley Holdings and the country-house hotel
Llangoed Hall
Llangoed Hall is a country house hotel, near the village of Llyswen, in Powys, Mid Wales. It is known for its decoration in Laura Ashley fabrics and styles, and was owned by Sir Bernard Ashley, the widower of the designer. It is a Grade II* l ...
. Ranked 796th richest person in the UK with a fortune of £60m in ''fashion and hotels'' by the
Sunday Times Rich List
The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth. The list is updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday news ...
. He lived mainly in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, but had houses in Hay-on-Wye and France.
Early life
Ashley was born 11 August 1925, the son of Albert Ashley and Hilda Maud Ashley. He attended
Whitgift Middle School in
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...
.
Laura Ashley plc
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, engineer Bernard Ashley met Welsh secretary
Laura Mountney at a youth club in
Wallington, London
Wallington is a town in the London Borough of Sutton, in South London, England. It is south south-west of Charing Cross. Before the Municipal Borough of Beddington and Wallington merged into the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London in 1965, ...
. While working as a secretary and raising her first two children, part-time she designed napkins, table mats, tea-towels which Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in an attic flat in
Pimlico
Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...
, London. The couple had invested £10 in wood for the screen frame, dyes and a few yards of linen.
From 1953, Bernard left his city job and the couple began to expand the company. This put themselves on the road to becoming an international company with a brand that is recognised around the globe. Laura designed the prints and Bernard built the printing equipment, so forging a complementary partnership that was to give the company its unique strength throughout the years. Laura remained in charge of design until shortly before her death, while Bernard handled the operational side.
Employing staff to cope with the growth of sales, the company was originally registered as Ashley Mountney (Laura's maiden name), but Bernard changed the name to Laura Ashley because he felt a woman's name was more appropriate for the type of products.
The newly formed company moved to
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in 1955, but the business was nearly wiped out in 1958, when the
River Darent
The Darent is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames and takes the waters of the River Cray as a tributary in the tidal portion of the Darent near Crayford, as illustrated by the adjacent photograph, snapped at high tide. 'Darenth' is frequen ...
overflowed – leaving equipment, dyes and fabrics floating in three feet of water. Turnover rose from £2,000 to £8,000 in 1960, and in light of the birth of the third of their four children, the family moved to Wales in 1961. Originally located in the social club in Carno, Montgomeryshire, in 1967 the factory moved across to the village's railway station.
These were crucial times in the development of the company – Bernard had developed his flat-bed printing process to produce 5,000 metres of fabric per week, and in 1966 Laura produced her first dress for social rather than work attire. By 1970, sales had reached £300,000 per year, and in one week alone, London's
Fulham Road
Fulham Road is a street in London, England, which comprises the A304 and part of the A308.
Overview
Fulham Road ( the A219) runs from Putney Bridge as "Fulham High Street" and then eastward to Fulham Broadway, in the London Borough of Hammers ...
shop sold 4,000 dresses – which resulted in the new factory in
Newtown, Montgomeryshire
Newtown ( cy, Y Drenewydd) is a town in Powys, Wales. It lies on the River Severn in the community of Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn, within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It was designated a new town in 1967 and saw population grow ...
. It was the opening of the Paris shop in 1974 which was the first to feature the distinctive green frontage and stripped wooden interior; and, in the same year, the first USA shop opened in San Francisco. A licensing operation led to the opening of department store concessions in Australia, Canada and Japan from 1971 onwards. By 1975, turnover was £5million per year and the company employed a thousand people worldwide. Laura turned down the offer of an
OBE (she was upset Bernard had not been offered one) but a
Queen's Award for Export
The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation, sustainable development or promoting opportunity (through social mobility). They are the highest ...
was accepted in 1977.
Two months after Laura's death in 1985, Laura Ashley Holdings plc went public in a flotation that was 34 times oversubscribed. Bernard Ashley was knighted in 1987.
However, by the end of the 1980s Laura Ashley was distinctly out of fashion. Women were making inroads in the boardroom, and sharp suits and shoulder pads were at odds with everything Laura Ashley stood for. Sir Bernard's larger-than-life personality and
idiosyncratic
An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person (though there are also other uses, see below). It can also mean an odd habit. The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be "quirk".
Etymology
The term "idiosyncr ...
style of management meant that he fell out of favour with the
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
. The first of a new group of CEO's was employed, in James Maxmin, who rationalised the production and distribution system – that until then, replaced a legacy system that would route, for example, a T-shirt manufactured in Hong Kong to a warehouse in Newtown, Wales, before sending it to a retail store in Japan. In 1992, Dr Maxmin led Laura Ashley to its first gross profits since 1989, and in fiscal 1993, gross profits were expected to reach 12 million pounds. But in early April 1994, Dr Maxmin abruptly resigned from Laura Ashley, citing major differences over strategy with Sir Bernard.
Laura Ashley celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1993, the same year that Sir Bernard retired as chairperson and became honorary life president.
Elanbach
In 2000, Sir Bernard set up a new textile company name
Elanbachand requested that daughter Emma Shuckburgh (née Ashley) act as its creative director. Named after Emma's home in the
Elan Valley
The Elan Valley ( cy, Cwm Elan) is a river valley situated to the west of Rhayader, in Powys, Wales, sometimes known as the "Welsh Lake District". It covers of lake and countryside.
The valley contains the Elan Valley Reservoirs and Elan Villag ...
near
Rhayader
Rhayader (; cy, Rhaeadr Gwy; ) is a market town and community in Powys, Wales, within the historic county of Radnorshire. The town is from the source of the River Wye on Plynlimon, the highest point of the Cambrian Mountains, and is locate ...
, it is based at Sir Bernard's five-star hotel,
Llangoed Hall
Llangoed Hall is a country house hotel, near the village of Llyswen, in Powys, Mid Wales. It is known for its decoration in Laura Ashley fabrics and styles, and was owned by Sir Bernard Ashley, the widower of the designer. It is a Grade II* l ...
, near Brecon, and was to be sold in shops in London and Paris.
Emma admitted to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
that she was surprised to be asked by her father: ''It's very exciting. It's a realisation of a dream. I kept thinking my father would say "I have changed my mind. I was joking." He hasn't said no to anything, so it's all going in the shops.'' Having grown up watching her mother design, Emma says the job simply comes naturally to her: ''I did my first dress design for Laura Ashley when I was 14, I was complaining there was nothing I could wear. She said, "right, just design some stuff then." I don't feel I have to live up to some great thing at all.''
The company launched its first shop in
in 2001, and included designs from Emma's daughter, Rose.
Sir Bernard Ashley bought Llangoed Hall, seeing it as the place where he could fulfill his ambition to recreate the atmosphere of an
house party. He later replicated this in other locations, but sold the two American properties in 1999 to Orient-Express Hotels, renamed as
. Purchased 1987, now a hotel and the base for Elanbach.
*
– sold in 1999 to Orient-Express Hotels.
Laura and Sir Bernard were married from 1949 until her death in 1985. Laura had four children, the expansion of the business meant the need for an escape point, and for creativity. They bought a house in France in the early 1970s, and kept in touch with the family and business through flying, with Sir Bernard's accomplished skills as a pilot.
The Ashley children were all involved in the business. David (born 1954/55), the eldest son, designed and opened 182 shops across America, daughter Jane was the company photographer; youngest daughter Emma designed textiles and their second son, Nick, was design director for Laura Ashley during its successful flotation in 1985. Nick went on to launch his own brand Nick Ashley, an exclusive menswear range, with a shop in Notting Hill and outlets throughout Japan.
Sir Bernard Ashley was the company chairperson of Laura Ashley and Laura kept a close eye on fabrics. The astonishing success of what proved to be the ultimate cottage industry, bought the Ashleys a yacht, a private plane, a French château in
, which in 2006 was offered for sale at $8.5million.
In 1985, on her 60th birthday, while she was visiting her children in the UK, Laura fell down the stairs and was rushed to hospital where she died ten days later. Her name lives on through her business. She is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, in Carno,
, Wales.
In 1990, he married Regine Burnell. He died of cancer on 14 February 2009 and is buried with Laura.