Career
He was also known as West. South. Aston or West. Smedley. He was also instrumental in encouraging and financing early moving films or "Biographs" as they were initially know, through his firm the British Biograph Company
He lived at The Yew Trees, Henley-in-Arden, a 16th-century timbered house, which housed his famous collection of early English Furniture, Old Masters & very early English Glass. A valuation report by The Fine Art & General Insurance Company (now part of Aviva) for the glass held by the family from 1920 shows it was insured for £2,000 which with inflation in 2011 equated to £73,345.
The collection was auctioned off in three sales (each three days long) by the auctioneers Grimleys throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
The Yewtrees is now three houses, having been sub-divided, and the five-acre gardens built upon. Much of his collection is pictured in the book Early English Furniture & Woodwork.
The collection was slowly sold off by the auctioneers Grimleys through a series of three sales. They had three children:
Michael Smedley-Aston - film director and producer who developed the early careers of Sean Connery and Peter Sellers, among others
They lived at Barlow Woodseats Hall in Derbyshire.
Ivo Smedley-Aston. The family were relatives of John Smedley, who had constructed Riber Castle and whose company still exists as a luxury garment producer. William"s brother, J. Herbert (Bert) Aston, founded what became (after its 1919 merger as Tube Investments Limited) TI Group, the world"s largest tubing firm.