Breaking the Glass Ceiling – Laura Ashley

by Diane Newman Jenkins BA (Hons)

Laura Ashley was the first female entrepreneur, and I wrote this to honour and celebrate a Dowlais born girl from my home town of Merthyr Tydfil.

Laura Mountney was born in Dowlais on the 7 September 1925. Although her Welsh parents lived in London, they returned to ensure their child would be born in Wales. She was born in her Grandmother’s house in 31 Station Terrace, and it was from these humble beginnings in a colliery workers cottage she would go on to become the owner of a multi-million pound fashion and furnishing empire, with 500 shops worldwide carrying her name.

As a child she attended Hebron Chapel in Dowlais, and went to school at Marshall’s School, of which I can find no trace on maps or documents. This was until 1932 when she moved to England and attended Elmwood School.

At the beginning of World War II, Laura was evacuated back to Wales. However the Merthyr schools were full, so she attended Secretarial school in Aberdare until 1942, when, aged 16, she left school and joined the Royal Navy Service.  Here she met the English engineer Bernard Ashley at a Youth Club.

Laura became Mrs Ashley in 1949 when she married Bernard. She and Bernard started a small business in 1953, in a basement flat in London’s Pimlico, Laura and her husband laid the foundations for what was to become one of Britain’s greatest fashion success stories.

She was inspired by an exhibition of Patchwork and Quilts on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Laura used library books to teach herself how to transfer colour onto fabric, working on a silk screen built by Bernard in their kitchen. This allowed her to make fabric for furniture, curtains etc. in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s. The company grew over the next 20 years to become an international retail chain.

While working as a secretary and raising two children, Laura undertook some work for the Women’s Institute on quilting, revisiting the craft she learnt from her Grandmother and books. But this was no overnight success story. The couple struggled to raise working capital and every bit of the profit was invested straight back into the business. Her first order was 20 scarves to John Lewis stores.  This grew to printed tea towels, gardening aprons etc. Bernard eventually left his city job to join in the family business. The couple went on to have another two children who all worked in the family business.

Laura became known as a British designer who achieved renown for her genteel Victorian inspired fashions in women’s clothes and for her English country style of furnishing for homes. For more than half a century her name was synonymous with quintessential English style, but Laura was Welsh through and through. Wales played a huge part in her success.  Her first shop was in Machynlleth in 1961, with a factory two years later in Powys. Bernard was the company chairman and Laura kept her eye on the fabrics.

From humble beginnings the couple went on to success in the company allowing them to afford a yacht, private plane, Chateau in France, town house in Brussels and a villa in the Bahamas.

In 1985, just days after her 60^th birthday Laura fell down the stairs at their daughters home in the West Midlands. She was taken to hospital, but sadly died days later of a brain haemorrhage. She is buried back home in Wales, in Carno.

The company continued without her. Sales totalled over £276 million in 2000. However in March 2020, due to the pressure put on retailers because of the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, the fashion chain collapsed and went into administration.