The Arts & Crafts Movement

After the Guild was forced to cease all activities in 1919, Ashbee’s career came to a turning point. It was then that he was appointed Civic Adviser to the city of Jerusalem. He was in charge of rebuilding the city and protecting the ancient buildings and historical monuments. His extensive knowledge in urbanism and his love for the preservation of ancient buildings were particularly useful for this task. He lived in Jerusalem to carry out this most ambitious project from 1919 to 1923, and he resigned from his post in 1922. Thereafter, he went back to England and retired in Godden Green in Kent

With this in mind, Ashbee created in 1888, while still active in Toynbee Hall, the Guild and School of Handicraft in the same neighbourhood. While the school only lasted until 1895, the Guild flourished. The Guild was a workshop combining the principles of the Arts and Crafts as well as the social aspects Ashbee had learned with his social work. Five workmen constituted the small staff that begun the Guild of Handicraft under the supervision of Ashbee. They made furniture and worked with metal. The year following the creation of the workshop, they participated in the second exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition society as members of the co-operative of craft workers in leather, wood, metal and jewellery. In 1891, the Guild moved to Essex House still in the East End while a retail shop was implanted in the West End so it would be more accessible to the patrons of the Guild.

For him, the Socialist movement seemed to be the only solution to the problems of Victorian society, particularly the complications emerging from the Industrial Revolution.