Login   Sign Up 



 

Charles Robert Ashbee and the Guild of Handicrafts

by Mickey 

Posted: 06 June 2007
Word Count: 214
Summary: C R Ashbee (1863-1942) set up a kind of workers’ co-operative whose aims were to elevate the status and independence of the craftsman. Established in the East End of London in 1888, his Guild of Handicraft moved at the turn of the last century to Chipping Campden, ‘a little Cotswold town that industrialism had never touched’


Font Size
 


Printable Version
Print Double spaced


A fine guild of craftsmen was nobly conceived,
By a great man of vision untarnished by greed,
Who just wanted to follow the Ruskin-esque dream,
By rebelling against the cold, soulless ‘machine’.

This small band of workers in silver and leather,
Set up in that autumn of Whitechapel terror,
When the artistic conscience was bestially ripped,
And the name ‘leather apron’ was on every lip,

He removed to a Gloucestershire workers’ retreat,
And there, from the East End of London’s bleak streets,
His Whitechapel workshops of lathe and of loom,
Were re-sited as part of a workers’ commune,

Where production of beauty through good honest sweat,
And provision of food through the plough and the net,
He hoped would support them and bind them as well,
And supplement prices at which they could sell,
A beautiful hand-produced functional style …

They struggled and struggled but, after a while,
These artisan craftsmen producing fine goods,
In hand-hammered metals and all kinds of woods,
Just couldn’t compete with the Birmingham mills,
Turning from arms now the guns had been stilled.

And so, in the course of three decades and more,
That had started with murder and ended in war,
The world turned its back on the Arts and Crafts dream,
Embracing instead the cheap, tawdry machine.






Favourite this work Favourite This Author


Comments by other Members



Simabuka at 20:19 on 07 June 2007  Report this post
Hi Mickey

This is a very well worked piece, and must have been quite difficult in keeping the balance on such a technical subject - good stuff.

simabuka

joanie at 18:01 on 08 June 2007  Report this post
Hi Mike. I enjoyed this; it's good to learn something new every day, especially through this medium! My son has just gone to live in Chipping Campden - I didn't realise that it had anything to do with the Arts and Crafts Movement.

I have to say it again ... the rhyming poetry is always well received! I like how you have changed the format in verses 4 and 5. I think that adds a certain je ne sais quoi!

I also like the total contrast between the opening and closing phrases.... very telling!

Keep them coming, Mike; there is a need for this type of poetry out there, I'm sure!

Joan

V`yonne at 23:33 on 17 August 2007  Report this post
I loved the drum beat/hammer beat/ mechanistic rhythms of this. It's great. Have you submitted it?


To post comments you need to become a member. If you are already a member, please log in .