Berthold Audsley

Berthold Audsley (1874-1962) dedicated the majority of his career to the building of scale models for the Newark Museum (Newark, NJ) and the Edison Lamp Works. He designed a 1/8 scale model of the Pennsylvania Railroad K4s, which was subsequently built by Calvert Holt.

Berthold's father was George Ashdown Audsley (1838-1925), famed architect and organ designer.

A biographical  sketch  of  Berthold Audsley  appeared  in  the  21  December  1930 issue of The Sunday Call of Newark, New Jersey:


 * Time was, back in 1912 while Mr. [Berthold] Audsley was in England, that he made a model of the Immingham docks on the Hummber River in Yorkshire. On  a  platform  constructed  in  eleven  sections,  28  by  16  feet,  the  model  represented territory covering two square miles.  Every building, crane and bridge and 8,000 tiny gondola cars filled with coal were made and put in their proper places by Mr. Audsley, who completed the exhibit in three months.  The last six weeks of the time, he lived in a room at an inn next door to his specially built workshop and worked twenty-two hours a day.  That model required the construction and placement of two miles of miniature railroad track.    The  model  was  placed  on  exhibition  at  the  Ghent  Exposition  in 1913.


 * Mr. Audsley is the type of artist who can step down from a heavy machinery lathe to another bench and start work on an intricate lacy carving, or do a bit of painting in oils so exacting as to require the use of a magnifying glass.

David H. Fox wrote:


 * Berthold Audsley also constructed models of ships, carriages, armor, and Medieval castles  for  use  as  educational  materials  in  the  Newark,  New  Jersey,  public schools.  Several of these are still preserved at the Newark Museum where he was employed.  He additionally constructed working model steam locomotives of cast metal.  One eighteen-inch-long example, presently in a private collection, developed 200 pounds pressure and ran at 40 miles per hour.

Obituary
David H. Fox wrote:


 * Berthold Audsley Born 5 October 1873; model maker for Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; model maker at Edison Lamp Works and Westinghouse firms; taught at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York; returned to Newark Museum, 1943; retired 1958; died 21 January 1962, Newark, New Jersey. Married Gertrude Clark Children: Hazel A. Monprode, Marion Hook