George Ashdown Audsley

George Ashdown Audsley (September 6, 1838 - June 21, 1925 (age 86)) was an accomplished architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer who excelled in many artistic fields but is perhaps best known today for having designed the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia.

Born September 6, 1838 in Elgin, Scotland, George Ashdown Audsley apprenticed with A. & W. Reid, Architects, there. In 1856, he followed his older brother, William James Audsley (1833-1907), to Liverpool, England, and was employed by architect John Weightman.

By 1860, Audsley & Co., architects and makers of mounts and passe-partout, was established. The firm was eventually named W. & G. Audsley and completed ten churches in the Gothic Revival Style in the Liverpool area. An eclectic style was used for synagogues built in Liverpool and London. The firm's secular buildings, such as the Layton Art Gallery in Milwaukee, WI, USA, closely followed the style of Alexander Thomson (1817-1875), featuring Greek, Egyptian and Hindu motifs.

Audsley and his brother authored lavishly illustrated books on ornament and Japanese art, as well as personally illuminated versions of great literature.

By 1884, the brothers apparently separated, with William emigrating to the USA and George relocating to a London suburb where he had built a house replete with a music room and a pipe organ he designed himself that was admired by Saint-Saens and others. The move to London seems to have been occasioned by G.A. Audsley's success with the New West End Synagogue there (a masterpiece of Victorian architecture and furnishing), but further architectural commissions in the London area failed to materialize. While there, he appears to have been financially unsuccessful in establishing himself as a pipe-organ designer and author of artistic books. He immigrated to the New York City area c. 1890.

The firm of W. & G. Audsley was revived and was commissioned to design the Bowling Green Offices (completed 1896), the largest office building erected in New York City to that time. Two Catholic schools, a chapel in Brooklyn, NY, a library in Norwalk, CT, and a church in Philadelphia, PA, were also designed by the firm.