Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty (13 August 1843 – 11 May 1917) was a British merchant, and the founder of Liberty & Co.

Early life

Arthur Liberty was born on 13 August 1843 in

Chesham Chesham ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, about north-west of Charing Cross, central London, and part of the London metropolitan area, London ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, England, the son of a draper. He began work at sixteen with an uncle who sold lace, and later another uncle who sold wine. By 1859 he was apprenticed to a draper, but he instead took a job at Farmer & Rogers, which specialised in women's fashions. He quickly rose to the post of manager of the warehouse.

Liberty & Co.

After Farmer & Rogers refused to make him a partner in their business, Liberty, in 1875, opened his own shop, Liberty & Co., in

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George IV of the United Kingdom, George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash (architect), J ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. There he sold ornaments, fabrics and miscellaneous

objets d'art In art history, the French term objet d'art (; ) describes an ornamental work of art, and the term objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish ...

from the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

. Liberty & Co. initially provided an eclectic mix of popular styles, but went on to develop a fundamentally different style closely linked to the Aesthetic Movement of the 1890s,

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

(the "new art"). The company became synonymous with this new style to the extent that in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, Art Nouveau became known as ''Stile Liberty'' after the London shop. The company's printed and dyed fabrics, particularly

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

s and

satin A satin weave is a type of Textile, fabric weave that produces a characteristically glossy, smooth or lustrous material, typically with a glossy top surface and a dull back; it is not durable, as it tends to snag. It is one of three fundamen ...

s, were notable for their subtle and "artistic" colours and highly esteemed as dress material, especially during the decades from 1890 to 1920. Arthur Liberty married first Martha Cottam in 1865, from whom he obtained a divorce in 1869 on the grounds of her adultery and second, Emma Louise Blackmore in 1875. They had no children. He was knighted in 1913.

Death and legacy

Liberty died on 11 May 1917. Before he died, Liberty had amassed a small fortune as a majority shareholder in Liberty & Co. (it had become a public limited liability company in 1890). He left a manor house, several cottages and a large area of farmland near his birthplace in Buckinghamshire.http://jrose.dynip.com/family/archives/documents/correspondence/email/00-04-12_Liberty_et_al_Part_I.HTM His gravestone was designed by Archibald Knox, one of Liberty & Co.'s long-standing designers.

References and sources

;References ;Sources *Levy, Mervyn (1986) ''Liberty Style, The Classic Years, 1898–1910''. New York: Rizzoli.

External links

Arthur Liberty and the Evolution of the Liberty StyleHistory of Liberty & Co.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberty, Arthur Lasenby 1843 births 1917 deaths British businesspeople High sheriffs of Buckinghamshire People from Chesham Knights Bachelor 19th-century British businesspeople