LONDON A NEW PLAN OF LONDON WESTMINSTER AND SOUTHWARK ENGRAVED FOR NOORTHOUCKS HISTORY OF LONDON 1772

Ashby was born April 17, 1744, at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, and was apprenticed to a clockmaker in that town, who also engraved dial-plates, spoons, and tankards. Here Ashby imbibed a taste for engraving. On the termination of his apprenticeship he removed to London, where, following the bent of his inclination for writing-engraving, he entered into an engagement with Mr. Jefferies, geographer, of Charing Cross, his principal employment being to engrave titles for maps and charts.

Subsequently Ashby worked for John Spilsbury, writing-engraver, of Russell Court, Drury Lane, to whose business he eventually succeeded, and whose widow he married. Ashby was employed by provincial, colonial, and foreign bankers, to engrave notes and bills. Some penmen also gave scope to his skill as an engraver of specimens of calligraphy. Among the works for which he engraved the plates are:

John Hodgkin, Calligraphia Gaeca, 1794;

William Milns, Penman's Repository, 1795;

Hodgkin, Specimens of Greek Penmanship, 1804;

H. Genery, Geographical and Commercial Copies, 1805;

Richard Langford, Beauties of Penmanship, 1825 (?); and

some of the plates in Thomas Tomkins, Beauties of Writing, 1809.

In his later years, Ashby lived in retirement at Exning, Suffolk, where he died on August 31, 1818 at the age of 74.