1880s - manager of an iron foundry at Ferrybridge, Yorkshire; Ashley began trying to construct a bottle-making machine[ 1886 - patented a two-stage bottle-making machine; 1886-1890 - improvements were described in further patents leading to a three-stage process machine to make narrow-necked glass bottles; Ashley set up The Ashley (Machine-Made) Bottle Company was set up to exploit the invention; by 1894 -company failed although it had claimed to make bottles in a tenth of the time compared to making them by hand;