Scottish Furniture, 1500-1914, about to be published by National Museums Scotland is the first comprehensive narrative account of furniture-making in Scotland. In this lecture, the book’s author, Stephen Jackson, will guide us through the evolving landscape of Scottish furniture-making with particular reference to national and regional characteristics.
Based in Edinburgh, Stephen is editor of the Regional Furniture Society’s annual journal. Graduating from Cambridge in 1993, his career with furniture started in London at the Geffrye Museum, now the Museum of the Home. He wrote a MPhil with David Jones at St Andrews before becoming a curator at Middlesex University and then at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He joined National Museums Scotland in 1999 and the new book is the culmination of many years of research during which he travelled extensively to study furniture in the wild.
To attend this on-line talk, please apply to the RFS Events organiser by 15th June at events.rfs@gmail.com. You will then be sent a link shortly before the event.
This visit is an exclusive RFS event, whilst the previously listed Symposium is not.
We will meet for coffee in the café of the Parkinson Building, where Mark Westgarth, Associate Professor in Art History & Museum Studies at the University, will talk to us about the library of mainly British furniture books and manuscripts dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, created by the antiques dealer John Victor Bedford (1941-2019) and gifted to the University of Leeds. Mark is lead curator of the exhibition, which runs until 21 December 2024.
We then travel by public transport to Temple Newsam Museum, which has a cafe for lunching. Adam Toole, Curator of and Furniture and Decorative Art will show us some of the vernacular furniture acquired by Christopher Gilbert, the museum curator and founding member of the RFS who was based at Temple Newsam for his entire working life. The day finishes at 16:30
Cost of the day £10, (refreshments not included) A booking form is available to print from here.
Members may be interested in the following offering from the Furniture History Society and BIFMO:
Join us online every Tuesday throughout June, when curators and historians will consider the evolution and variety of country house interiors in Britain and Ireland created between 1780 and 1950, with an emphasis on furniture makers and designers. Each of the four sessions will deal with a different stylistic phase and will be introduced by either Dr Megan Aldrich (sessions 1-3) or Elisabeth Bogdan (session 4). Every week the introduction will be followed by two experts who will provide case studies on specific country houses, ranging from Castletown House in Co. Kildare to Castle Drogo in Devon. There will also be short Q&A sessions.
Here is an overview of the course programme:
Session 1 – 4th June
Title: Reconsidering the Antique: later neoclassical interiors
Speakers: Dr Megan Aldrich, Dr Kyle Leyden & James Collett-White
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Session 2 – 11th June
Title: Opulence and Excellence in Regency Interiors
Speakers: Dr Megan Aldrich, Dr Alexandra Loske & Adriana Turpin
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Session 3 – 18th June
Title: The Arts and Crafts Country Houses: Alternative Interpretations of the Past
Speakers: Dr Megan Aldrich, Jessica Insley & Annette Carruthers
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Session 4 – 25th June
Title: The Country House in the Twentieth Century
Speakers: Elisabeth Bogdan, Katherine Sharp & Professor Pat Kirkham.
Tickets may be bought for individual sessions or for the entire course, but you will benefit from a discount if all 4 sessions are bought together. Don’t worry if you cannot attend the sessions live because they will be recorded and links to the recording will be sent to ticketholders. These recordings will not be available to purchase after the course has ended. FHS members and ECD members will receive a discount on all tickets.
For further information and to purchase tickets please click here to travel straight to the relevant Eventbrite page. If you have any questions, please contact Ann Davies at bifmo@furniturehistorysociety.org.
This 2-day symposium, developed as part of the exhibition ‘Part of the Furniture: The Library of John Bedford’ (Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, University of Leeds, 9 January – 21 December 2024), and in collaboration with Temple Newsam, Leeds, seeks to explore furniture history as a subject and to reflect on what furniture history of the future might look like.
The history of furniture remains one of the dominant areas of interest within the history of the so-called ‘Decorative Arts’. Since it emerged in the 19th century, scholarship focused on furniture history has expanded far beyond the interests of its earlier pioneers, transforming furniture history as a discipline.
The symposium programme includes a facilitated tour at Temple Newsam (part of Leeds Museums & Galleries) to explore the world-class furniture collections at the house, as well as an opportunity to see extra materials from the collection of John Bedford at the University.
Bookings details and the conference programme are in this link.
Chair of the month for May is this salesman’s miniature chair. It was made in about 1865, probably by Glenister’s. It is quarter sized, about 42 cm high.
Victorian chair salesmen often took miniature chairs like this with them on their journeys. They set out with wagon loads of furniture to sell and miniature chairs to show what else could be ordered. After about 1870, when printed pictures of chairs were used instead, the small chairs were not usually thought to be worth keeping. This one was rescued from a bonfire, and eventually given to Wycombe Museum.
You can see this chair and find out more about how chairs were marketed in our temporary exhibition ‘The Art of the Chair’ until 2 Feb 2025.
Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum and the Regional Furniture Society.
Regional Furniture Society 
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