[1] He is generally credited with the formulation of a Christian socialist form of the medieval guild, as an alternative basis for economic life.
[4] Among surviving buildings by Walter and Arthur Penty are: He attracted national and even international attention, including favourable notice in Herman Muthesius's Das englische Haus (1904).
After World War I guild socialism dropped back as a factor in the thinking of the British Labour movement, in general; the idea of post-industrialism, on which Penty wrote, attributing the term to A. K. Coomaraswamy, receded in importance in the face of the economic conditions.
Penty was an acknowledged influence on the writings of Spain's Ramiro de Maeztu (1875–1936), who was murdered by Communists in the early days of the Spanish Civil War.
The somewhat complex British development of distributism emerged as a conjuncture of ideas of Penty, Hilaire Belloc and the Chestertons, Cecil and Gilbert.
By a curious coincidence the arrival of Douglas reproduced for a moment the old trio of Jackson, Orage and Penty, who ten years before had come from Leeds to London to launch the Fabian Arts Group.