Maurice Ash

Maurice Anthony Ash (31 October 1917 – 27 January 2003) was an environmentalist, writer, and planner. He was chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association and of the Dartington Trust.

Education and early life

Born at Hazaribagh, India, Ash was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, the London School of Economics (where he read economics) and at Yale. At LSE, he met Michael Young, later Lord Young of Dartington, who became a lifelong friend.

Ash's grandfather, Gilbert Ash, was a property developer who left him a large fortune.

War service

During the Second World War, Ash served in the British 23rd Armoured Brigade in North Africa, Italy and Greece. In 1944, he was mentioned in dispatches. He later wrote a history of his regiment.

Career

After the war, his friend Young introduced him to the Dartington Hall Trust. The rundown 1,000 acre (4 km²) estate of Dartington, near Totnes in Devon, had been bought by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in the 1920s. With ideas from the philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and money Dorothy Elmhirst inherited from her family (the American Whitneys) the Elmhirsts rescued a medieval hall and developed the estate, creating craft workshops and founding a famous design school. Ash met the Elmhirsts' daughter Ruth and in 1947 they were married. They had a son and two daughters.

After farming in Essex, Ash was interested in the postwar plans for new towns such as Welwyn Garden City and joined the Town and Country Planning Association, becoming its chairman and later its vice-president. The TCPA published the influential magazine Bulletin of Environmental Education. Ash promoted enlightened development.

In 1962, the Ashes bought Sharpham House, Ashprington, near Totnes, in Devon, a large Palladian house designed by Robert Taylor. A 100-acre (400,000 m2) farm there was run on Rudolf Steiner principles, and also vineyards, a Buddhist community and college, and the Robert Owen Foundation, a charity which provided agricultural experience for people with mental disabilities.

Ash also became chairman of the Dartington Trust. While some Dartington activities were given up, others started. Dartington glass and the Schumacher College continued. Ash also backed a magazine called The Vole.

In writing about the great private estates which followed the dissolution of the English monasteries, Ash argued that they had been failures in any civilising sense. Monasteries had been centres of learning and innovation. He argued for re-establishing such communities. Broadly, his philosophy followed Wittgenstein and rejected Descartes.

Books by Maurice Ash

His published books include -

Other appointments

Sources

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