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
Members may be interested in the following BIFMO-FHS online course on Zoom:
1 November: 5 pm – 7.30 pm (GMT) and 1 pm – 3.30 pm (EDT) 8, 15, 22 and 29 November: 5 pm – 7.30 pm (GMT) and 12 noon – 2.30 pm (EST) Please note that for the first week, the start time for US ticketholders on the East Coast will be four hours behind the UK. Thereafter, the time difference will be five hours.
Join us online for a couple of hours every Wednesday throughout November, when curators and historians will consider the development of styles in Britain, from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, by examining the creative process involved in making furniture. Speakers will look at how designs were devised and the impact of collaboration between different disciplines on the way concepts and ideas were realised and translated into objects.
Guided by specialist speakers, the course will look at a wide range of examples of design and craftsmanship from almost 500 years of furniture making in Britain; from the influence of print designs on makers in the early seventeenth century to the mass-produced furniture of Charles and Ray Eames in the twentieth.
Here’s an overview of the course programme:
Session 1 – 1st November
Early print sources and their influence on furniture makers
Speakers: Nick Humphrey, Catherine Doucette, Dr Amy Lim.
Session 2 – 8th November
Furniture makers interpreting design in the 18th century
Speakers: Katherine Hardwick, Annabelle Westman, Dr Megan Aldrich.
Session 3 – 15th November
Furniture makers, Designers and Architects in 18th century Britain
Speakers: Dr John Cross, Professor Jeremy Howard, Dr Kerry Bristol.
Session 4 – 22nd November
Stretching the imagination: furniture making in the 19th century
Speakers: Ellinor Gray, Dr Diana Davis, Clarissa Ward.
Session 5 – 29th November
Innovation and modernity: the role of the designer in the 20th century
Speakers: William Lorimer, Matthew Winterbottom, Professor Pat Kirkham.
Tickets may be bought for individual sessions or for the entire course, but you will benefit from a discount if all 5 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.
For further information and to purchase tickets please click here to travel straight to the Eventbrite page. FHS members and ECD members will receive a discount on all tickets. If you have any questions, please contact Ann Davies at bifmo@furniturehistorysociety.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.
Last November Daniel Ackermann very kindly presented his webinar ‘Working wood in the inland American South’. The YouTube version is now available. The index to the talk appears below. There is a maximum character limit within the YouTube index of 5000 characters. A longer version of the index, which additionally includes hyperlinks to items, articles and publications referred to in the talk appears in this post after the YouTube short version.
0:00 Introduction: 0:07 H Vanhorn Carpenter & Joiner; baby needs cradle, dead a coffin & life needs chests/chairs/desks; 1:09 Alexander Spotswood’s VA small part of early America 1:51 Mexican desk/bookcase cf Boston high chest 2:04 Blue Ridge/Appalachians barrier to expansion & provided defence via Shenandoah 4:18 1681 Charles II grants PA to Wm Penn; 4:43 PA crucible thru geography & religious tolerance 5:10 1761 map of diversity of religion: PA settled via grants: later led to migration 6:40 into Shenandoah 6:55 Gt Wagon Rd to Augusta GA, 9:00 multiple cultures together 10:06 Quakers in N Shenandoah Germans/Lutherans in mid & Scots-Irish Presbyterians in S 10:28 1649 Fairfax Grant by Charles II set up Quakers in N 10:58 by early 1730s e.g. Hopewell Friends’ Meeting House 11:35 Quakers English Scots-Irish Welsh w regional furniture traditions 11:48 Luptons moved to Shenandoah to 1700 acres, grist & sawmills; David Lupton (1757-1822) Frederick Cty, VA built $5k house; high chest, corner cupboard, desk/bookcase 13:08 see American Furniture 1997 13:30 also Nick Powers on Quaker furniture makers MESDA jnl 13:42 1795 Lupton High Chest cf 1765-75 Philadelphia Rococo High Chest; Lupton’s Neo-classical adaptation of earlier Rococo form 15:05 Lupton desk/bookcase, see Gusler 1997 16:38 Lupton close-ups 17:02 confluence of Potomac/Shenandoah 17:32 sophisticated mahogany sideboard, Winchester, Frederick Cty VA; 17:58 moving up the Valley, German-speaking families from PA Lutherans who would fight (Quakers wouldn’t) from 1740s 19:08 Fort Egypt in Page Cty VA 19:17 cf Quaker 1740s Ross’s Spring w Fort Egypt 1758 19:42 Mahatango Valley Farm 20:19 Chest, Shenandoah Cty 20:58 Fraktur, J Strickler 1794 cf 21:14 to Hanging Cupboard/Clock by J Spitler, Page Cty VA 21:30 more Spitler work 21:34 Chests & Schrank 1779 w sulphur inlay 22:12 Shenandoah sulphur inlay blanket chest cf 1777 Fraktur decorated w hearts/tulips/urns 22:34 Käge 1788 Chest cf Siron 1793 chest 23:14 Scots-Irish (Ulster Protestants) 23:47 map of Beverley Manor/Irish Track 24:08 J Lewis of Ulster cleaved landlord’s skull in twain 24:56 Irish unkindly described by Chas Wood Mason 25:48 furniture simple solid & conservative; 26:14 Augusta Stone Church 1747 26:25 Jos Ray – PA, Wagon Rd by 1759 in Augusta Cty 27:02 Dressing table Augusta Cty, Ray for Lewis; 27:24 Jos Ray & J Price, Augusta Cty, High Chests 1765 & 1775-95 & Longcase Clocks 27:55 Longcase clocks by Wm Huston (PA then Augusta via Wagon Road) 1775-95 Augusta case by Ray; 28:12 son Jas clockmaker 28:42 Wagon Rd connects to Cumberland Rd/Cumberland Gap 29:18 Chest on chest Ray-Price shop & corner cupboard Moses Crawford 1790-1810 in Knox Cty East TN 29:50 Tracey Parks article re Moses Crawford; 30:12 High chest on frame Thos Pierce, Guilford Cty NC 1785-95 cf one by Virgil Eachus Chester Cty PA 1789 30:47 D Osborne Guilford Cty NC ; 31:18 Frakturs from PA/NC/SC by Ehre Vater Artist 31:35 Painted blanket chests Lebanon Cty PA, Alamance Cty NC, Wythe Cty VA, and Walton Cty GA, 31:47 Blanket chest, Christian Seltzer, Lebanon Cty PA 1796 cf J Huddle, Wythe Cty VA 1825-30 ; 32:19 Convergences of traditions Chest of drawers, Moses Pyle, Chester Cty PA 1746 line & berry cf Jos Wells Alamance Cty NC, sulphur inlay for German client 32:53 Germanic Chair w Cherokee woven seat Walton Cty GA 1790-1820; 33:23 cf Cherokee basket 33:30 Diamond Hill, Jos Vann House, Murray Cty GA Cherokee & Moravian 33:53 Punched tin decoration food safes 34:24 food safe at Colonial Williamsburg w linen 34:36 punched tin safe Green Cty TN 34:51 another with lights inside cf 35:23 example from Wythe Cty VA 35:31 cf Rockbridge Cty VA see Kurt C Russ and Jeffrey S Evans ISBN 9780984462421 35:53 Corner Cupboard Hugh McAdams Washington Cty TN 1808 cf another Sullivan Cty TN 1800-08 & desk/bookcase Wm Campbell Madison Cty KY 1800-10 exuberant inlay 36:14 Amber Clawson article; 36:26 Desk Hugh McAdams Washington Cty TN 1808 cf Wm McClure Green Cty TN 1803-12 36:39 Trans-Appalachian West into Ohio River Valley 37:02 1810 Mason Cty KY Census in Lewisburg. Gerrard Calvert J Foxworthy & P Tuttle. 37:30 Calvert Chest of drawers Mason Cty 1795-1800 cf sugar desk 1800-15 37:47 more than 100 chests 38:31 Calvert/Foxworthy/Tuttle start in Prince Wm Cty, Chesapeake Bay VA, move to Maizeville/Lewisburg. Ohio River joins Mississippi 39:15 Calvert Chest of drawers Mason Cty speaks to New Orleans Armoire 1800-20 Pied de biche foot goes upstream while Anglo-American inlay goes downstream creating new styles 40:31 Backcountry furniture not backwards 40:48 Wm Challen chairs Lexington KY 1825-35 & 1809 advertisement. Think about 41:38 VA SC PA WV on own terms of people/places they came from 42:22 Q&A topics include sulphur inlay, punch-tin, Jeff Evans on vernacular chairs, fluted qtr columns in NW England (Quaker link?), repetition of motifs & possibly artists within Frakturs and painted chests; any link between Dutch painted furniture and US painted?
Longer version of index with hyperlinks to items and publications:
0:00 Introduction: Settlement Culture Migration 0:07 Henry Vanhorn Carpenter & Joiner; the baby needs a cradle, the dead require a coffin and in between there are the chests the chairs and the desks; 0:30 objects are the result of people, place and time: new styles for a new nation 1:09 the Virginia of Alexander Spotswood 1:37 Virginia was small part of early America 1:51 Mexican desk and bookcase contemporaneous to Boston high chest 2:04 Blue Ridge and Appalachians presented a barrier to westwards expansion and provided defence via settlement of Shenandoah Valley 2:56 Expansion westwards to the Fault Lines, then the Blue Ridge Mountains as more land was wanted; also Piedmont and Tidewater regions 4:18 1681 Charles II grants province of Pennsylvania to William Penn; 4:43 Philadelphia becomes crucible and grows through both geography and religious tolerance 5:10 1761 map of Philadelphia shows diversity of religion 5:45 settlement of Pennsylvania initially via grants: later shortage led to waves of migration 6:40 also into the Shenandoah Valley 6:55 The Great Wagon Road went all the way to Augusta Georgia, 9:00 almost a Fertile Crescent and Silk Road in one bringing multiple cultures together 10:06 Quakers in the Northern part of the Shenandoah Valley German speakers and Lutherans further south in the middle and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians further south 10:28 1649 Fairfax Grant by Charles II in exile set up Quakers in Northern part 10:58 by early 1730s early Meeting Houses e.g. Hopewell Friends’ Meeting House 11:35 Quakers were English Scots-Irish Welsh and brought their own regional furniture traditions 11:48 David Lupton’s father and grandfather moved into the Shenandoah Valley and accumulated 1700 acres with grist and sawmills; in 1791 David Lupton (1757-1822) of Apple Pie Ridge, Frederick County, Va built $5k house; high chest, corner cupboard, desk and bookcase two now at Colonial Williamsburg 13:08 American Furniture 1997 https://chipstone.org/article.php/286/American-Furniture-1997/Crossroads-of-Culture:-Eighteenth-Century-Furniture-from-Western-Maryland ; https://chipstone.org/article.php/290/American-Furniture-1997/The-Furniture-of-Winchester,-Virginia ; https://chipstone.org/article.php/317/American-Furniture-1997/Adaptation-and-Reinterpretation:-The-Transfer-of-Furniture-Styles-from-Philadelphia-to-Winchester-to-Tennessee ; 13:30 also on MESDA website Nick Powers article on Quaker furniture makers https://www.mesdajournal.org/2018/friends-in-high-places-quaker-furniture-makers-in-virginias-northern-shenandoah-valley/ ; 13:42 The 1795 Lupton family High Chest compared to a 1765-75 Philadelphia Rococo High Chest; Lupton’s is really a Neo-classical adaptation of the earlier Rococo form 15:05 Lupton desk and bookcase, well-constructed objects – see Gusler 1997 (link above) 16:38 Lupton close-ups 17:02 confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah 17:32 sophisticated sideboard, Winchester, Frederick County VA. in mahogany and rosewood; 17:58 moving up the Valley, German-speaking families from Pennsylvania Lutherans who would fight (Quakers wouldn’t) moving in from 1740s 19:08 Fort Egypt in Page County VA 19:17 compare Quaker 1740s Ross’s Spring with Fort Egypt 1758 19:42 Mahatango Valley Farm 20:19 Chest, Shenandoah County 20:58 Fraktur, Jacob Strickler 1794 compared 21:14 to Hanging Cupboard and Clock by Johannas Spitler of Page County VA 21:30 more examples of Spitler’s work 21:34 Chests and Schrank 1779 with sulphur inlay 22:12 Shenandoah Valley sulphur inlay blanket chest compared alongside a 1777 Fraktur both decorated with hearts and tulips and urns 22:34 Abraham Käge 1788 Chest https://mesda.org/item/collections/blanket-chest/2402/ compared to John Siron 1793 chest https://emuseum.history.org/objects/2723/blanket-chest;jsessionid=93605B048050C3AE4188D12303697B42 ; 23:14 Scotch-Irish (Ulster Protestants) 23:47 settled in Beverley Manor Irish Track 24:08 John Lewis of Ulster who cleaved his landlord’s skull in twain 24:56 Irish described by Charles Wood Mason as ‘rude, ignorant, void of manners education or good breeding, no genteel or polite person among them, a set of the most lowest vilest crude breathing Scotch Irish Presbyterians from the north of Ireland’ 25:48 furniture simple solid and conservative https://mesda.org/item/collections/arm-chair/851/ ; https://emuseum.history.org/objects/35288/armchair-panel-back?ctx=ea89dfba2b39a0a2f4b1befcf13dfa90a97924ca&idx=127 ; 26:14 Augusta Stone Church 1747 26:25 Joseph Ray – Philadelphia, Wagon Road by 1759 in Augusta County 27:02 Dressing table Augusta County by Ray for John Lewis; 27:24 Joseph Ray and John Price, Augusta County, High Chests 1765 and 1775-95 and Longcase Clocks same dates 27:55 Longcase clocks by William Huston (Philadelphia then Augusta via the Wagon Road) 1775-95 Augusta case by Ray; 28:12 son James Huston also a clockmaker 28:42 Wagon Road connects to the Cumberland Road and the Wilderness Trail and Cumberland Gap 29:18 Chest on chest from Ray-Price shop and corner cupboard by Moses Crawford 1790-1810 in Knox County East Tennesee 29:50 C Tracey Parks article about Moses Crawford https://www.mesdajournal.org/2013/moses-crawford-tennessees-earliest-cabinetmaker-revealed/ ; 30:12 High chest on frame Thomas Pierce, Guilford County North Carolina 1785-95 and High chest on frame Virgil Eachus Chester County Pennsylvania 1789 30:47 David Osborne Guilford County North Carolina https://www.mesdajournal.org/2018/friendly-furniture-the-quaker-cabinetmakers-of-guilford-county-north-carolina-1775-1825/ ; 31:18 Frakturs from Pennsylvania and North and South Carolina by the Ehre Vater Artist 31:35 Paint-decorated blanket chests from Lebanon County Pennsylvania, Alamance County North Carolina, Wythe County Virginia, and Walton County Georgia, 31:47 Blanket chest, Christian Seltzer, Lebanon County PA 1796 and one by John Huddle, Wythe County VA 1825-30 ; 32:19 Convergences of traditions Chest of drawers, Moses Pyle, Chester County PA 1746 line and berry and one by Joseph Wells Alamance County North Carolina, sulphur inlay for a German client 32:53 Germanic Chair with Cherokee woven seat Walton County Georgia 1790-1820; 33:23 compare with Cherokee basket 33:30 Diamond Hill, Joseph Vann House, Cherokee Nation now Murray County Georgia Cherokee and Moravian 33:53 Punched tin decorated furniture for food safes 34:24 food safe at Colonial Williamsburg with linen 34:36 punched tin safe again Green County Tennessee 34:51 punched tin safe again Green County Tennessee with lights inside cf 35:23 example from Wythe County Virginia 35:31 one from Rockbridge County Virginia see Opening the Door. Safes of the Shenandoah Valley by Kurt C Russ and Jeffrey S Evans ISBN 9780984462421 Published by Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, 2017 35:53 Corner Cupboard Hugh McAdams Washington County Tennessee 1808 cf another Sullivan County Tennessee 1800-08 and desk/bookcase Wm Campbell Madison County Kentucky 1800-10 exuberant inlay 36:14 Amber Clawson article https://www.mesdajournal.org/2016/the-mcadams-family-of-cabinetmakers-and-the-cultural-palette-of-east-tennessees-rope-and-tassel-school-of-furniture/ ; 36:26 Desk Hugh McAdams Washington County Tennessee 1808 cf Wm McClure Green County Tennessee 1803-12 36:39 Trans-Appalachian West into Ohio River Valley 37:02 1810 Mason County Kentucky Census has 3 cabinet makers in Lewisburg. Gerrard Calvert John Foxworthy and Peter Tuttle. 37:30 Calvert Chest of drawers Mason County Kentucky 1795-1800 cf sugar desk 1800-15 37:47 Matt Cox fieldwork has identified more than 100 chests 38:31 Calvert/Foxworthy/Tuttle families start in Prince William County, Chesapeake Bay VA and move to Maizeville Washington and Lewisburg. Ohio River joins Mississippi and influence goes down to Louisiana 39:15 Calvert Chest of drawers Mason County speaks to New Orleans Armoire 1800-20 Pied de biche foot goes upstream while Anglo-American inlay tradition goes downstream creating new styles 40:31 What is Backcountry furniture? Not backwards – more dynamic 40:48 William Challen chairs Lexington Kentucky 1825-35 and his 1809 advertisement 41:10 Good Better Best 41:23
Good Better Best Backcountry not the best way to think about 41:38 VA SC PA WV on their own terms of people places they came from 42:22 Q&A topics include sulphur inlay, , punch-tin, Jeff Evans on vernacular chairs, fluted quarter columns in the north-west of England (any connection with Quakers?), repetition of motifs and possibly artists within Frakturs and painted chests; any link between sugar desks and Dutch grain desks? any link between Dutch painted furniture and US painted?
Chair of the Month for June is this Rush-seated Chair made for St Paul’s Cathedral, London
It was made in High Wycombe, probably at Walter Skull’s factory in the 1870s.
The workers who made the rush seats were known as ‘matters’. Before the 1880s, when local women could still find work as lace makers, most chair seat matters were men. As the hand-made lace industry declined, women began to make rush seats, and from around 1880 onwards, most matters were women.
This chair can be seen in the Hidden Hands exhibition at Wycombe Museum until 10 September. There is a lot more information about chair matting and other Chilterns crafts done by women in the exhibition.
Regional Furniture Society 
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