W.A.S. Benson a pioneer of modern design rediscovered

Magazine Antiques, June, 2001 by Peter Rose

In the summer of 2000 the Fine Art Society on New Bond Street, London, mounted a selling exhibition entitled Pioneers of Design, adapting the title of Nikolaus Pevsner's 1936 classic book. (1) It celebrated the work of three of the most outstanding designers of the late nineteenth century. Two were predictably William Morris (1834-1896) and Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), but the third, William Arthur Smith Benson (Fig. 1), was perhaps more surprising. Pevsner himself had virtually omitted mention of him, and only a few months before the Fine Art Society show another exhibition, rather defeatistly called The Neglected Mr Benson, had run its course without much notice. (2) Yet the critic for the London Independent, reviewing the Fine Art Society exhibition in the issue of September 9, declared that it was "Benson who emerges as the hero among the three .... Morris failed to achieve his ideal of good design for everyone because his products were ... too expensive," and "Dresser had no coherent theory of production and design." In contrast, Benson "rose to the challenge of technology and invention particularly in the field of electricity."

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In his own lifetime, and indeed from early in his career, Benson was internationally celebrated, and widely recognized as a true pioneer of modernism. His products were commercially successful from the mid-1880s onwards, when he set up a retail shop on New Bond Street, selling in large quantities to a discriminating middle-class clientele. His products ranged over a great variety of domestic items including furniture, light fittings, domestic metal hollowware, and a variety of small decorative items. His chief claim to a high position in the pantheon of pioneer modernists lies, however, in his designs for light fittings, in the beginning using gas and oil, but in the late 1880s, with the introduction of electricity for domestic purposes, the electric light. Throughout the 1890s he led the world in his innovative designs, to the extent that by the beginning of the decade he was suffering from that most insidious form of flattery--the pirated copy. (3) Indeed, warnings were issued, and many of his technical innovations were protected by patent, but Benson's style became widely imitated throughout Europe, for even a minor variant invalidated the protection of the patent.

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In the twentieth century Benson continued to develop his ideas, although by this time continental fashion favored the exuberance of art nouveau. Benson became more involved in the affairs of Morris and Company, and in 1905, some years after William Morris's death, he became a director. The products of his own manufacturing company, W. A. S. Benson and Company, became increasingly linked with the arts and crafts products of the Morris firm. Effectively his career ended when in 1914 Great Britain entered World War I, and his company was converted to the manufacture of military equipment, shells, naval instruments, and the like.

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Benson was born in London in October 1854. Soon afterwards his family moved to Alresford, Hampshire, then as now a handsome market town set among the watercress beds and trout streams of that lush and verdant county. His father, William Benson (1816-1887), was a local magistrate who had retired early from an active legal career in order to enjoy a more leisurely life with his wife Elizabeth, who was described as "full of beauty and goodness," (4) a great lover of poetry, an admirer of the Pre-Raphaelites, and an ardent student of John Ruskin (1819-1900). Much of William Benson's widely observed "dreaminess" can be ascribed to his mother's "quaint simplicity of mind and speech and an unaffected unworldliness." (5) A very different influence on the young boy came from his maternal uncle, William Arthur Smith, from whom he derived his first three names. Uncle William lived in the family house, Colebrook Park, near Tonbridge, Kent, another southern county celebrated for its natural and man-made beauties. Unlike his sister, Uncle William was a practical man of science who had cultivated great skill in the use of lathes and other mechanical devices. The young William was a frequent visitor, and under his uncle's tutelage acquired a love of mastering complex machinery, thus developing a highly original and inventive mind.

William Benson followed the educational route of a child of his class, tempered by the cultivated and enlightened attitudes of his parents. He first attended Darch's, a preparatory school in Brighton. By this time the south coast resort town had, at least partially, shed its dissolute reputation acquired during the Regency period, and had become home to an extraordinary cluster of respectable boys' boarding schools, and several more of perhaps a more dubious character. It was during walks on the Brighton beach, chaperoned by an aunt, that Benson acquired his abiding love of the sea and boats and observed the functional structure of the original Chain Pier (replaced in the 1890s). From Darch's he moved on to Winchester College in Winchester, an English public school of high repute and, fortunately for Benson, much closer to home so that frequent visits were possible. He successfully completed his studies, becoming a prefect, although much of the curriculum must have been uncongenial to him, since each day was dominated by the study of Latin and Greek. Although active in sports, mainly tennis and swimming, he suffered from headaches, usually associated with some unpleasant activity; was prone to severe colds; and had a weak digestion.