William Henry Ashurst

William Henry Ashurst
File:Ashurst, William Henry.jpg
Born	1819
Died	1879
Residence	28 Norfolk Crescent Hyde Park [1863] 7 Prince of Wales terr, Kensington Palace [1868]
Occupation	legal
Society Membership membership ESL, AI Ordinary Fellow left 1878.02.26 resigned elected_ESL 1863.11.24 elected_AI 1863 clubs Reform Club Arts Club

Notes

House Notes

Solicitor to the General Post Office
see also John Morris

Notes From Elsewhere

ASHURST MORRIS CRISP AND COMPANY William Henry Ashurst [senior] - His son, who was also politically active, retired from the firm in 1864 to become a Solicitor to the General Post Office, Saint Martin's Le Grand, London.
[corresponence of James McNeill Whistler] Ashurst went into partnership with his father as a solicitor in January 1843; from 1855-1862 he was a partner of John Morris, and from 1862-1879 was the Solicitor to the Post Office. He was an Under Sheriff of London and Common Councilman. He published pamphlets advocating reforms in the City of London and in the Court of Aldermen.
He was a friend of Whistler and his mother Anna Matilda Whistler. He was also a friend of Garibaldi and Mazzini, and of Robert Owen, a defender of Chartists and radicals, an advocate for the emancipation of women and for the subject nationalities of Europe.
He was also a member of the Reform Club and a member of The Arts Club from 1873-1885.

the radical William Henry Ashurst, supporter of progressive causes from the penny post to the American anti-slavery movement to Italian liberation, and leader of what became known as the “Muswell-Hill” brigade (named after Ashurst’s residence). The alliance the scandal brought about with the Ashurst family was particularly important: by 1846, members of the clan, including four free-thinking daughters—one of whom, Emilie, would become Mazzini’s later translator and biographer—were familiarly terming the Italian patriot “Mazz” or the “Angel” (Rudman 73-74).  The Ashursts were also increasingly displacing the Carlyles, and Jane Welsh Carlyle in particular, among Mazzini’s closest friends. Some of these figures (William Ashurst, Taylor) were members along with W. J. Fox, Joseph Toynbee, and others of the People’s International League. Several of them went on to act as influential members of the Society of the Friends of Italy established by Mazzini in February and March 1851.

Ashurst Morris Crisp & Co. of 6 Old Jewry was regarded at the time William Slaughter joined it, as it is today, as one of the City's leading law firms. This was due largely to the talents of two of its members, the senior partner, John Morris, and Frank (later Sir Frank) Crisp. Besides its reputation over the previous half century, two characteristics had come to distinguish it from the run of partnerships. The first was the much publicised radicalism of its founder, William Henry Ashurst, and his son and successor of the same name; the second was the firm's association with the mercantile and financial empire of James Morrison and his sons. ....
Ashurst junior, an astute commercial lawyer, was like his father a committed radical and after several years' work on the reform of the postal regulations left the practice [of Ashurst Morris Crisp] in 1862 to become solicitor to the General Post Office
[Slaughter and May: a century in the city by Laurie Dennett, which contains images not included in google version]

Publications

External Publications

Results of the new Postal arrangements. [Edited by W.H. Ashurst.].
Author: Rowland Hill, Sir
Publisher: H. Hooper: London, 1841.
Facts and Reasons in Support of Mr. Rowland Hill's Plan for a Universal ...
 By William Henry Ashurst