An Endeavour Toward the Teaching of John Ruskin and William Morris
![Ashbee, C.R. (Charles Robert), 1863-1942. An endeavor towards the teaching of John Ruskin and William Morris. Being an account of the work, the aims, and the principles of the Guild of handicraft in East London, written by C.R. Ashbee, and dedicated by him less in the writing, than in the work the writing seeks to set forth, to their memory. [London, E. Arnold, 1901].](../wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2014/02/3_2_AshbeeEndeavourTowardTeaching-web.jpg)
Like William Morris, C.R. Ashbee’s design practice was transformed by the reading of John Ruskin’s essays. He formed a ‘Ruskin reading group’ for working class men in Whitechapel, whom he nicknamed the B.W.M, or British Working Man. Though the idealistic young Cambridge graduate was initially intimidated by these rougher characters, he found their enthusiasm and skill inspiring and shortly after establishing the group wrote that ‘the B.W.M. is no more a terror for me’. The class was a great success and evolved from a lecture series into a design collective that would become the Guild of Handicraft.