A. C. Benson

(b London, 17 Oct 1854; d Manorbier, Dyfed, 5 July 1924). English designer. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and in 1877 he was articled to the architect Basil Champneys. Encouraged by William Morris, in 1880 Benson set up his own workshop in Hammersmith specializing in metalwork. Two years later he established a foundry at Chiswick, a showroom in Kensington and a new factory at Hammersmith (all in London), equipped with machinery to mass-produce a wide range of forms, such as kettles, vases, tables, dishes and firescreens. Benson's elegant and spare designs were admired for their modernity and minimal use of ornament. He is best known for his lamps and lighting fixtures, mostly in copper and bronze, which are fitted with flat reflective surfaces (e.g. c. 1890; London, V&A). These items were displayed in S. Bing's Maison de l'Art Nouveau, Paris, and were used in the Morris & Co. interiors at Wightwick Manor, W. Midlands (NT), and Standen, East Grinstead, W. Sussex. Many of Benson's designs were patented, including those for jacketed vessels, which keep hot or cold liquids at a constant temperature, and for a 'Colander' teapot with a button mechanism for raising the tea leaves after the tea has infused. Benson sold his designs, labelled 'Art Metal', through his showroom on Bond Street, which opened in 1887, and at the showroom of Morris & Co., both in London.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Well known as a designer and manufacturer of metalwork, particularly early electrical appliances, Benson was also well known as a designer of furniture and wallpapers. Although his roots lay in the Arts and Crafts Movement he was also important in linking its principles with modern modes of production and new technologies. His electrical appliances were admired by a leading propagandist for higher standards of design in German industry, Hermann Muthesius, who had experienced British design at first hand from 1896 to 1903. Samuel Bing sold Benson's work in Paris in his celebrated Galerie L'Art Nouveau.

At the outset of his professional career as a designer Benson set up a metal manufacturing workshop in 1880, following a period working in the architectural offices of Basil Champneys. He went on to open a factory in Hammersmith as well as a shop in Bond Street in central London in 1887. A member of the Art Workers' Guild and a key figure in establishing the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society that seceded from it, Benson became chairman of Morris & Co. following the death of Morris in 1896. Benson was also a founder member of the Design and Industries Association (DIA) in 1915.

Quotes:

"The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears."

"All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape."

Arthur Christopher Benson

Arthur Christopher Benson (24 April 1862 – 17 June 1925) was a British essayist, poet and author, and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Benson was one of six children of Edward White Benson, a late nineteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. An uncle of the family was philosopher Henry Sidgwick. The Benson family was exceptionally literate and accomplished, but their history was somewhat tragic. A son and daughter died young, and another daughter, as well as Arthur himself, suffered badly from a mental condition that was probably manic-depressive psychosis, which they had inherited from their father. None of the children ever married. He was gay, though his diaries suggest he had few or no sexual relationships.^[1]

Despite his illness, Arthur was a distinguished academic and a most prolific author. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge.^[2] From 1885 to 1903 he taught at Eton, returning to Cambridge to lecture in English literature for Magdalene College. From 1915 to 1925 he was Master of Magdalene. From 1906 he was a governor of Gresham's School.^[3]

His poems and volumes of essays, such as From a College Window, were famous in his day, and he left one of the longest diaries ever written, some four million words. Today he is best remembered as the author of the words to one of Britain's best-loved patriotic songs, Land of Hope and Glory, and as a brother to novelist E. F. Benson.

He is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.

Works

• Poems set to music by Edward Elgar: "In the Dawn", "Speak, Music!", "Speak, my Heart!", and the "Coronation Ode" including "Land of Hope and Glory" (1901-1902)
• The Hill of Trouble and Other Stories (1903)
• The Isles of Sunset (1904)
• The Child of the Dawn (1911)
• Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories (1911)
• Escape and Other Essays (1916)
• Basil Netherby (1926)

References

1. ^ "Selected poetry of Arthur Christopher Benson, 1862 - 1925". Representative Poetry Online. University of Toronto. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/374.html. Retrieved 19 July 2009. 
2. ^ Benson, Arthur Christopher in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
3. ^ The Times newspaper, Oct 22, 1906, p. 6, col. C

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. pp. 39. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 
• Wilson, Keith. "A. C. Benson," in Robert Beum, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Essayists, 1880-1960. Detroit: Gale, 1990, 192-204.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: A. C. Benson

• Essays by Arthur Benson at Quotidiana.org
• Representative Poetry Online
• Works by A. C. Benson at Project Gutenberg
• Picture of grave of A. C. Benson, Ascension Parish Burial Ground, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge
• A.C. Benson at Find-A-Grave

Academic offices
Preceded by Stuart Alexander Donaldson	Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge 1915–1925	Succeeded by Allen Beville Ramsay

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