Maurice Ash

Maurice Anthony Ash (31 October 1917 – 27 January 2003) was an environmentalist, writer, farmer, and planner. He was chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association and of the Dartington Trust. Education and early life Maurice Anthony Ash was born at Hazaribagh, India on 31 October 1917. His father, Wilfrid Cracroft Ash, was a successful civil engineer in British India who also made a large engineering contribution to the 1939-1945 War. His grandfather Gilbert Ash was the founder of the construction company Gilbert-Ash; Maurice was noted for technological inventions in pre-stressed concrete. The mathematician and brewer, Michael Ash, was his brother. Ash was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, the London School of Economics (where he read economics), and at Yale. At LSE, he met Michael Young, later Lord Young of Dartington, who became a lifelong friend. During his education he developed a lifelong dislike for pseudoscience. Career During the Second World War, Ash served in the British 23rd Armoured Brigade in North Africa, Italy and Greece. In 1944, he was mentioned in dispatches. He later wrote a history of his regiment.