Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She originally made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s. The Laura Ashley style is characterised by Romantic English designs often with a 19thcentury rural feel and the use of natural fabrics.
Although her Welsh parents lived in London, her mother returned home to allow Laura Mountney to be born in Wales at her grandmothers home,Station Terrace, in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil. She was raised in a civil service family as a Strict Baptist. The chapel she attended in Dowlais was Welsh language and although she could not understand it, she loved it, especially the singing. Educated at Marshalls School in Merthyr Tydfil until 1932, she was then sent to the Elmwood School, Croydon. She was evacuated back to Wales aged 13, but with so many World War II evacuees there were no school places left and she attended Aberdare Secretarial School.
Source: Wikipedia