William Smedley-Aston (1868–1941) was with his wife Irene a Victorian

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

Arts & Crafts photographer and member of the Birmingham Group of artists and the Linked Ring Brotherhood. He was also known as W. S. Aston or W. Smedley. He was also instrumental in encouraging and financing early moving films or "Biographs" as they were initially know, through his firm the British Biograph Co. He was married to Irene Smedley-Aston, who featured in many photographs, paintings, and drawings of the Arts and Crafts movement because the couple were friends with other members of the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design a ...

and the Birmingham Group (artists) such as

Joseph Southall Joseph Edward Southall RWS NEAC RBSA (23 August 1861 – 6 November 1944) was an English painter associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. A leading figure in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century revival of painting in tempera, Sout ...

Arthur Gaskin Arthur Joseph Gaskin RBSA The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is an art society, based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England, where it owns and operates an art gallery, the RBSA Gallery, on Brook Street, just off St ...

and

Maxwell Armfield Maxwell Ashby Armfield (5 October 1881 – 23 January 1972) was an English artist, illustrator and writer. Life Born to a Quaker family in Ringwood, Hampshire, Armfield was educated at Sidcot School and at Leighton Park School. In 1887 he was ...

. Armfield's wife Constance, née Smedley was William's first cousin. Constance was a successful writer who like her husband had attended Birmingham School of Art.“A World Fellowship”: The Founding of the International Lyceum Club for Women Artists and Writers
Grace Brockington, Academia.edu, Retrieved 21 June 2016 He lived at the William & Francis Radford designed

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...

townhouse 77

Holland Park Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...

W14 when in London and The Yew Trees,

Henley-in-Arden Henley-in-Arden (also known as simply Henley) is a town in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England. The name is a reference to the former Forest of Arden. Henley is known for its variety of historic buildings, some of which date ...

, a 16th-century timbered house, which housed his famous collection of early

English Furniture English furniture has developed largely in line with styles in the rest of northern Europe, but has been interpreted in a distinctive fashion. There were significant regional differences in style, for example between the Northern England, North Cou ...

Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

& very early English Glass. A valuation report by The Fine Art & General Insurance Company (now part of

Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 18 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...

) for the glass held by the family from 1920 shows it was insured for £2,000 which with inflation in 2011 equated to £73,345. The collection was auctioned off in three sales (each three days long) by the auctioneers Grimleys throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The Yewtrees is now three houses, having been sub-divided, and the five-acre gardens built upon. Much of his collection is pictured in the book ''Early English Furniture & Woodwork''. The collection was sold by the auctioneers Grimleys through a series of three sales. They had three children: * Michael Smedley-Aston – film director and producer who developed the early careers of

Sean Connery Sir Sean Connery (born Thomas Connery; 25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Origina ...

and

Peter Sellers Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...

, among others. * Rosemary Smedley-Aston –

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

historian and wife of John Milward, one of the heirs to Milwards Needles and the

Glencripesdale Estate The Glencripesdale Estate is a country estate situated along the south side of Loch Sunart, a sea loch in the west highlands of Scotland. Today, the Isle of Càrna is the last remaining part of a once huge acre deer forest, river and grousemo ...

. They lived at

Barlow Woodseats Hall Barlow Woodseats Hall is a Grade II* listed manor house situated at Barlow Woodseats, on the edge of the village of Barlow, in Derbyshire. It remains the only manor house in the Parish of Barlow, and the current house dates from the early 17th ...

in Derbyshire. * Ivo Smedley-Aston. The family were relatives of John Smedley, who had constructed

Riber Castle Riber Castle is a 19th-century Grade II listed country house in the hamlet of Riber on a hill overlooking Matlock, Derbyshire. It is built of gritstone from a local quarry which was pulled up the hill by a series of pulleys. History Known loca ...

and whose company still exists as a luxury garment producer. William's brother, J. Herbert (Bert) Aston, founded what became (after its 1919 merger as Tube Investments Limited)

TI Group TI Group plc (formerly "Tube Investments") was a holding company for specialised engineering companies. It was based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It was registered as ''Tube Investments'' in 1919, combining the seamless steel tube businesses of Tu ...

, the world's largest tubing firm. In turn his son John Aston went on to run

Reynolds Technology Reynolds Technology is a manufacturer of tubing for bicycle frames and other bicycle components based in Birmingham, England established in 1898. History The Reynolds Tube Company was founded in 1898 by John Reynolds in Birmingham, England, b ...

, which was part of TI Group, and included

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

bicycles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smedley-Aston, William 1868 births 1941 deaths 19th-century English photographers English collectors English furniture Photographers from London Birmingham School of Art People associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood