Chair of the month for April is a World War 2 Utility chair. It was made by E Gomme of High Wycombe under the World War 2 furniture rationing known as Utility. Between 1942 and 1952, only designs agreed by the government Board of Trade could be made. These designs made the most of limited raw materials.
Two local furniture makers were on the board that designed Utility furniture – Herbert Cutler of High Wycombe Technical College, and Edwin Clinch of Wycombe furniture factory, Goodearl Brothers.
After the War, E Gomme would go on to launch G-Plan furniture.
You can see this chair and find out more about chair design and marketing in Wycombe Museum’s 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.
This month’s chair has been selected by the Museum’s new Assistant Curator who is working on an exciting project to make the collection artefacts in our stores easier to visit, study and enjoy. We’ll keep you updated with more news on this over the coming weeks…
In the meantime, Chair of the Month for March is one of around 300 chairs we have in storage. It is a bow back Windsor armchair with a pierced central splat (the bit in the middle of the seat back). It was made by Jack Goodchild in around 1946. Jack initially trained as a bottomer (the person who makes the chair seat) but later changed to making whole chairs at his workshop in Naphill. He was one of the last local chair craftsmen and died in 1950.
You can find more photos of Jack and his work on the SWOP website. https://swop.org.uk/
Does this bring back memories of the Swinging Sixties?
Chair of the Month for February is this wonderful GoGo chair, designed by Robert Bennett for Evans of High Wycombe. Evans have been making bespoke sofas and chairs since 1958, and the GoGo reflects their innovative and experimental designs of the time which used new materials and styles, such as this blue vinyl, bucket-shaped chair.
Robert Bennett was a local furniture designer whose career also saw him designing pieces for another local company, Gomme Ltd, as part of their renowned G-Plan range.
You can see this chair in our temporary exhibition ‘Our Place’ until 10 March 2024.Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum www.wycombemuseum.org and the Regional Furniture Society https://regionalfurnituresociety.org
Chair of the month for December is this Wheelback Windsor armchair, made in the High Wycombe area, about 1800-1830. Made from various local woods, including cherry wood, elm, ash, beech and yew.
By the early 1800s, Windsor chair making had become centred on High Wycombe. Wheelback Windsor chairs like this one were made in large numbers. The various timbers have been carefully chosen for the chair part that suits it best. For example, cherry and yew woods are used decoratively on the front legs and in the centre of the wheel in the back. Elm is used for the seat because it was available in wide planks and has an attractive grain pattern. The bow (hoop) is made from ash which bends well without splitting. The back legs are made from beech, which was cheaper and more readily available than cherry wood.
This chair is on display in Wycombe Museum’s ‘Our Place Exhibition’ until 10 March 2024. Information about Wycombe Museum’s exhibitions can be found here Exhibitions | Wycombe Museum Official Site
Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum wycombemuseum.org.uk and the Regional Furniture Society regional furnituresociety.org
November’s chair of the month is this ‘Q – Stack’ chair, designed by Robin Day of High Wycombe in about 1953 and manufactured by Hille in London.
In the 1950s, new ways of constructing chairs were made possible by new materials such as plastic, plywood and tubular steel. This chair uses plywood, with tubular steel legs held on by two bolts. It has a hand grip in the back, so that it can be easily carried. Unlike traditional chairs, several of these chairs can be stacked on top of each other when not being used. It was designed as a low-cost space-saver for meeting places, cafes, halls, and homes.
It is currently on display in Wycombe Museum’s Chair Galleries.
Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum wycombemuseum.org.uk and the Regional Furniture Society regional furnituresociety.org
Chair of the Month for October is the Wycombe Pitt Chair, a Windsor armchair made by John Pitt in the 1740s. It is made from beech with walnut arm-bow, fruitwood legs and elm seat. The maker of this early Windsor chair was John Pitt, wheel maker and Windsor chair maker. He lived in the hamlet of Upton-cum-Chalvey, which is now part of Slough. The chair is painted with the coat of arms of the City of Bath. Upton-Cum-Chalvey was on the main road from London to Bath.
The Wycombe Pitt chair was bought for the museum with the help of The Art Fund, The V&A Purchase Fund and The Beecroft Bequest.
An article about John Pitt was published by the Regional Furniture Society in 2005. You can read it here.
You can see this chair in Wycombe Museum’s ‘Our Place Exhibition’, until 10 March 2024. Information about Wycombe Museum’s exhibitions can be found here Exhibitions | Wycombe Museum Official Site
Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum wycombemuseum.org.uk and the Regional Furniture Society regional furnituresociety.org
The Furniture Makers’ Company is pleased to announce the launch of a new online catalogue of the Frederick Parker chair collection. This unique collection of 191 British chairs dating from the 1670s to 2015 has now been researched, assessed and digitally photographed, to complete the first comprehensive catalogue of the collection. The chairs are fully described in a clear and accessible format suitable for students, historians and anyone interested in furniture history.
The collection was formed mainly in the early 20th century by furniture makers Frederick Parker & Sons, to provide a resource of antique styles suitable for reproduction. As the demand for reproduction furniture declined in the mid-century, the collection became redundant and in 1997 it was saved from disposal by the formation of a trust, the Frederick Parker Foundation, which was able to raise the funds to purchase a significant number of the chairs. The collection is now owned by the Furniture Makers and is on long-term loan to London Metropolitan University, with many of the chairs on display and the rest in controlled storage, accessible for study. Further chairs, especially of the late 20th century, have been added to show a coherent progression of English chairmaking from the 17th century to the present day.
The chair collection is complemented by the Frederick Parker and Parker Knoll Archive, also owned by the Furniture Makers and on loan to the university, providing a fascinating record of 150 years of furniture production.
We encourage visitors, especially students in design, making and upholstery, to make use of this unique learning resource. The online chair catalogue now enables people to study the collection remotely and we hope it will inspire further research and new directions in design and manufacture.
The chair collection catalogued can be accessed here.
September is back-to-school month! Combined school desk and chair, made in 1909. Unlike most of the artefacts at Wycombe Museum, it wasn’t made locally. It was made by Geo. M. Hammer and Co, of The Strand in London.
We hope that August brings us good weather and the free time to take a seat and relax in the open air. However, damp or dirty outdoor seats can be a problem, especially in the UK. This chair was designed to solve that problem – just turn it upside-down and you would always have a dry seat to sit on! The mystery about this chair though is the date. Is it 18th century, like so many other Windsor garden chairs? It has so many layers of old paint, this seems likely. Or was it made more recently? Chairs like this were patented in 1906. A conservator viewed the chair in 2009 and thought it could be of either date. What do you think?
This low stool was used by several generations of chair seat caners, between about 1870 and 1950. During this time, caning seats was a job mainly done by women. Workers needed a low stool to work comfortably. This stool like a Windsor chair without the back. The last woman to use the stool was Mrs Rolph, who lived in Bowerdean Road, High Wycombe.
Regional Furniture Society 
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