William Smedley-Aston

Who was William Smedley-Aston?

William Smedley-Aston was with his wife Irene a Victorian Pre-Raphaelite 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 and the Birmingham Group such as Joseph Southall, Arthur Gaskin and Maxwell Armfield.

He lived at The Yew Trees, Henley-in-Arden, a 16th-century timbered house, which housed his famous collection of early English Furniture, Old Masters & very early English Glass. A valuation report by The Fine Art & General Insurance Company 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 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.