(b Elgin, 1838; d New York, 1925). Scottish architect, designer and writer. Trained as an architect, he moved to Liverpool, Lancs, in 1856 and set up an architectural practice with his brother William James Audsley (b 1833) in 1863. With him he wrote Handbook of Christian Symbolism (1865), and together they designed a number of buildings in and around Liverpool, among them the Welsh Presbyterian Church, Prince’s Road, Toxteth (1865–7), Christ Church, Kensington (1870), and the church of St Margaret, Belmont Road, Anfield (1873). For the merchant William Preston they designed the church of St Mary (1873) in the grounds of his house, Ellel Grange, Lancs. Other commissions were for a synagogue and a tennis club. He was among the earliest publishers to exploit the graphic potential of chromolithography, and, contrary to other major books on ornament, he made a case for classifying designs by their basic motif rather than by nationality. He was an expert on Japanese art, lecturing on the subject and between 1870 and 1884 producing several books that proved influential as sources for japonaiserie, among them Keramic Art of Japan and The Ornamental Arts of Japan. In the 1890s he produced with Maurice Ashdown Audsley an ambitious guide entitled The Practical Decorator and Ornamentalist. In 1892 he moved to New York, where he continued to produce handbooks on applied ornament, turning and stencilling with his son Berthold Audsley.