Chair of the Month for October is the Jessop Chair.

It is a typical Wycombe-made Wheelback Windsor chair, made in about 1840. It has an elm seat, beech legs and ash bow. Unusually, it has a label under the seat with the retailer’s name – A Jessop. Ann Jessop was a retailer based in Sheffield in the 1840s. This char is one of many that was made in High Wycombe but sold much further away. Traveling salesmen, took chairs on heavily laden wagons from Wycombe factories to shops and retailers in the midlands and north.

This chair can be seen in the history galleries at Wycombe Museum. It is Object 8 in ‘A History of Wycombe in 10 Objects’.