W A S Benson lighting and copper wares for sale

William Arthur Smith Benson (1854 - 1924)
Early in his life he lived in Alresford, Hampshire. His father was a local magistrate and he was educated at Darch's prep school then Winchester college and then went onto read classics in philosophy at New College, Oxford. He abandoned his studies to become an architect and articled to Basil Champneys from 1877 to 1880. He had met and became friends with Burne-Jones in 1877 which led to an introduction to William Morris. In the early 1880's he had his own studio producing furniture and lighting. He produced lighting scheme for project such as Phillip Webb's STANDEN. He is mainly remembered for his lighting and domestic metal ware. These were retailed by the Army and Navy stores for example. He exhibited including at the 1901 Glasgow international Most items we see today are the myriad of domestic insulated jugs and ewers. These came in many sizes and finishes.
	Many of his products were not marked especially the lighting. The picture on the left show a selection of marks. He also had a tendency of hiding the marks. So on similar products the mark may be on the underside of one, inside the handle of another or on the lid of a third; so look carefully.

Examples
click on picture for full details