December’s Item of the Month is a rare electroplated rose bowl by W. A. S. Benson, circa 1900, stamped ‘Benson’ to the underside of one foot. The bowl is design No. 776, which was designed by W. A. S. Benson and manufactured by W. A. S. Benson & Co and can be identified in illustrated copies of W. A. S. Benson & Co’s ‘Lighting and Hollow-ware Designs’.
William Arthur Smith Benson (1854 – 1924)
As a young man William Arthur Smith Benson completed his training in the office of Basil Champneys, an architect who helped revive the late Gothic style favoured by the Arts and Crafts Movement. Through Champneys Benson was introduced to William Morris, who encouraged him to establish a small workshop for the production of turned metalwork. Unlike Morris, Benson fully embraced the potential of mechanical production and designed exclusively for it. A founder member of the Art Workers’ Guild (established in 1884), Benson created a commercially successful range of oil and electric light fittings, and household utensils in copper brass, electroplate and silver. Following Morris’s death in 1896, Benson became Managing Director of Morris & Co., for which he also designed furniture and wallpaper.
Biographical information taken from the Victoria & Albert Museum (Arts and Crafts: design for the home · V&A (vam.ac.uk)).