The Guild of Handicraft

Education had always been an important aspect of C.R. Ashbee’s design practice. He surrounded himself with students and comrades that shared and tested new ideas, and the Guild of Handicraft itself functioned as one way to engage in design education. The Guild was interested in creating a formal and structured context within which this education could continue, and Chipping Campden seemed the ideal place, surrounded as it was by uneducated rural workers whose lives they were determined to improve. With some support from the Gloucester County Council and various friends and family members, the Guild of Handicraft opened the Campden School of Arts and Crafts in 1904 at Elm Tree House. Initially intended to elevate students through an education in art, design and culture, it soon included classes that taught skills for the simple life. Men, women and children attended classes, which ranged from life drawing and pottery to gardening and the proper starching of laundry.