Chair of the month for June is the AD Chair by Tom Rawlings, for William Hands, oak with upholstered seat. Designed in 2016 and first made in 2017, this chair retails as the ‘Broadway Chair. A range of different heights were introduced in 2018 to extend the range.
This chair has been loaned by William Hands to our temporary exhibition ‘The Art of the Chair’, which can be seen until 2 Feb 2025.
Wycombe Museum is working with local furniture producers and other partners on the Chilterns Chairs Festival. The festival takes place throughout July with events and family fun to celebrate the unique chairmaking heritage of Wycombe and the local area. Visit Wycombe Museum’s website for more information www.wycombemuseum.org.uk. The Chilterns Chairs Festival is being organised by Wycombe Museum and is funded by the Chalk, Cherries & Chairs Landscape Partnership. CCC is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and is hosted by the Chilterns National Landscape.
Chair of the Month is a partnership between Wycombe Museum and the Regional Furniture Society.
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.
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
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.
Regional Furniture Society 
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