William Arthur Smith Benson was born in London in 1858 and educated at Winchester and Oxford. He was first articled to the office of Basil Champneys. In 1880 he set up a workshop for the manufacture of metalwork. He was inspired in this by William Morris, whom he had long admired. Later he opened a well-equipped factory in Hammersmith, and about 1887 a shop in Bond Street. The firm survived until he retired in 1920. Benson was an active member of the Art Worker’s Guild from 1884 and a leader in the formation of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1886. On Morris’s death in 1896, he became chairman of Morris & Co. and designed furniture and wallpapers for them. He was a founder member of the Design and Industries Association in 1914. He died in 1924.

Benson’s firm produced some simple furniture, but his main output consisted of well-designed utilitarian metalwork. This was usually in copper and brass but sometimes in electroplate. It included lamps, teapots and food warmers. Benson had always been interested in engineering. Unlike so many of his Arts & Crafts contemporaries, he had little compunction about the use of the machine.