Sir Aston Webb was an English architect, active in the late 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. He was President of the Royal Academy from 1919 to 1924, and the founding Chairman of the London Society, from 1912. He was born on May 22, 1849 in London, United Kingdom. From the early 1880s, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects (1883) and began working in partnership with Ingress Bell (1836–1914). Their first major commission was a winning design for the Victoria Law Courts in Birmingham (1886), the first of numerous public building schemes the pair designed over the next 23 years. He served as RIBA President (1902–1904) and, having been elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in 1903, served as acting president from 1919 to 1924. He received the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1905 and was the first recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1907. He was the first chairman of the London Society in 1912. He was knighted in 1904, appointed a Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1909 and appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as Commander in 1911, promoted to Knight Commander in 1914 and Knight Grand Cross in 1925. He died in Kensington, London, on 21 August 1930.