Individual Notes
Note for: ? Lucina Julia DIVE, ABT 1824 - ABT DEC 1895
Index
Residence: Date: 1881
Place: ? Bethnal Green, Lnd., Eng. (with sister Margaret Davis)
Individual Notes
Note for: George Edward ASPREY, ABT DEC 1851 - ABT JUN 1918
Index
Occupation: Date: 1881
Place: Drapery Case Maker
Occupation: Date: 1901
Place: Goldsmith
Residence: Date: 1881
Place: 3 Bloom Grove, Lambeth, Sry., & Chetsfield, Kent, England
Residence: Date: 1901
Place: Chelsfield, Ken., Eng.
Individual Note: George & family were living in Lambeth, Surrey at 1881 Census.
Individual Notes
Note for: Caroline PEACHEY, ABT 1855 - ABT JUN 1888
Index
Residence: Date: 1881
Place: 3 Bloom Grove, Lambeth, Sry., Eng.
Individual Notes
Note for: George Kenneth ASPREY, ABT MAR 1880 - ABT SEP 1947
Index
Occupation: Place: Goldsmith, New Bond St., London, England
Residence: Date: 1901
Place: Chelsfield, Ken., Eng.
Individual Notes
Note for: Edward Algernon ASPREY, 2 JUN 1912 - MAY 1991
Index
Occupation: Place: Goldsmith
Individual Notes
Note for: Henry Ellison (Harry) ASPREY, 28 APR 1915 - 25 OCT 1997
Index
Occupation: Place: Goldsmith - Managing Director of ASPREY & Co.
Individual Note: Harry Asprey -- Obituary
Harry Asprey, goldsmith and former managing director of Asprey & Co., died on October 25th aged 82. He was born on April 28th, 1915.
When Harry Asprey heard that a head of state had fallen, his first reaction was to check the strongroom at the royal jewellers, Asprey's, so that any expensive items commissioned by the departed leader could be swiftly offered to his replacement.
He was successful in persuading the new Government of Ghana to take on a full dinner service after Kwame Nkrumah had been toppled by the army in 1966: it helped that Nkrumah's own presidential crest had not yet been engraved on the various pieces. A throne ordered by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was less easy to shift after the King's assassination in 1975. It spent many months in the New Bond Street showroom of the jewellers, which had been sent up by Asprey's great-great-great-grandfather.
Henry Ellison Asprey was educated at home rather than with his four brothers at Charterhouse, because of a chronic ear infection that left him slightly deaf.
His natural inclination was towards farming, but at 17 he deferred to tradition and joined the family firm. He was one of the few Aspreys to master the art of working with precious metals, instead of simply supervising. He trained as a goldsmith and silversmith and became sufficiently proficient for his opinion on how pieces should be finished to be frequently sought by the company's master craftsmen.
His resourcefulness did not desert him when he discovered, on arriving to value a carpet for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, that he had forgotten his tape-measure. He paced it, toe to heel, to her great amusement.
In 1939 he joined up the day after the war was declared. For a year he drove ammunition trucks through France, but he was badly injured when one of the trucks exploded. He was sent home to die, but had the good fortune to encounter his family doctor among the medics serving on the military train taking him from Dover to hospital in Liverpool. Asprey always believed that his life had been saved by the particular care shown him as a result.
As the family business expanded after the war, Harry Asprey became one of its two managing directors, with responsibility for its Asian and Middle Eastern operations. He spent an entire day arguing with Customs before they would allow through 200 leather pouches ordered by the King of Nepal for Buddhist monks. Visits to Haile Selassie in Ethiopia were enlivened by Asprey's deliberate failure to warn his travelling companion about the tame lion that prowled the palace grounds.
Asprey indulged the wish of his craftsmen to inscribe their names on exceptional pieces of work. He also demanded an extra week's holiday for them. After his side of the family was ousted from Asprey's in a boardroom coup in 1970, he set up in business on his own, trading in antique silver for American clients. He was also on the council of the British Antique Dealer's Association. In his spare time he played a lot of golf, renovated houses and rode a motorcycle.
His wife, Eileen, died in 1958. In 1960, at the age of 45, he married an 18-year-old model, Mary, who took on his nine-year-old daughter as well as bearing him two sons and another daughter. He is survived by his wife and four children.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd., 1997.
Not Available for Re-dissemination.
UNITED KINGDOM
THE TIMES 14/11/97 - P.25
________________________________________
Harry Asprey was a goldsmith and the former Managing Director of Asprey & Co., the royal jewellers in Britain.
When he heard that a head of state had fallen his first reaction was to check
the strongroom so that any expensive items commissioned by the departed
leader could be swiftly offered to his replacement.
He persuaded the new government of Ghana to take on a full dinner service
after Kwama Nkrumah was toppled by the army in 1966 but disposing of a
throne ordered by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia after his assassination in 1975
was much harder.
Taken from Herald - Sun 24.11.1997.
Harry Asprey -- Obituary
Harry Asprey, goldsmith and former managing director of Asprey & Co., died on October 25th aged 82. He was born on April 28th, 1915.
When Harry Asprey heard that a head of state had fallen, his first reaction was to check the strongroom at the royal jewellers, Asprey's, so that any expensive items commissioned by the departed leader could be swiftly offered to his replacement.
He was successful in persuading the new Government of Ghana to take on a full dinner service after Kwame Nkrumah had been toppled by the army in 1966: it helped that Nkrumah's own presidential crest had not yet been engraved on the various pieces. A throne ordered by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was less easy to shift after the King's assassination in 1975. It spent many months in the New Bond Street showroom of the jewellers, which had been sent up by Asprey's great-great-great-grandfather.
Henry Ellison Asprey was educated at home rather than with his four brothers at Charterhouse, because of a chronic ear infection that left him slightly deaf.
His natural inclination was towards farming, but at 17 he deferred to tradition and joined the family firm. He was one of the few Aspreys to master the art of working with precious metals, instead of simply supervising. He trained as a goldsmith and silversmith and became sufficiently proficient for his opinion on how pieces should be finished to be frequently sought by the company's master craftsmen.
His resourcefulness did not desert him when he discovered, on arriving to value a carpet for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, that he had forgotten his tape-measure. He paced it, toe to heel, to her great amusement.
In 1939 he joined up the day after the war was declared. For a year he drove ammunition trucks through France, but he was badly injured when one of the trucks exploded. He was sent home to die, but had the good fortune to encounter his family doctor among the medics serving on the military train taking him from Dover to hospital in Liverpool. Asprey always believed that his life had been saved by the particular care shown him as a result.
As the family business expanded after the war, Harry Asprey became one of its two managing directors, with responsibility for its Asian and Middle Eastern operations. He spent an entire day arguing with Customs before they would allow through 200 leather pouches ordered by the King of Nepal for Buddhist monks. Visits to Haile Selassie in Ethiopia were enlivened by Asprey's deliberate failure to warn his travelling companion about the tame lion that prowled the palace grounds.
Asprey indulged the wish of his craftsmen to inscribe their names on exceptional pieces of work. He also demanded an extra week's holiday for them. After his side of the family was ousted from Asprey's in a boardroom coup in 1970, he set up in business on his own, trading in antique silver for American clients. He was also on the council of the British Antique Dealer's Association. In his spare time he played a lot of golf, renovated houses and rode a motorcycle.
His wife, Eileen, died in 1958. In 1960, at the age of 45, he married an 18-year-old model, Mary, who took on his nine-year-old daughter as well as bearing him two sons and another daughter. He is survived by his wife and four children.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd., 1997.
Not Available for Re-dissemination.
UNITED KINGDOM
THE TIMES 14/11/97 - P.25
________________________________________
Harry Asprey was a goldsmith and the former Managing Director of Asprey & Co., the royal jewellers in Britain.
When he heard that a head of state had fallen his first reaction was to check
the strongroom so that any expensive items commissioned by the departed
leader could be swiftly offered to his replacement.
He persuaded the new government of Ghana to take on a full dinner service
after Kwama Nkrumah was toppled by the army in 1966 but disposing of a
throne ordered by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia after his assassination in 1975
was much harder.
Taken from Herald - Sun 24.11.1997.