ANTIQUE FURNITURE RESEARCH & STUDY The Arts & Crafts Home presents a research facility and Directory of 19th Century Furniture makers for anyone interested in the history of 19th Century furniture design and manufacture.
News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - Mark Golding and Paul Shutler have worked to create these pages for use by those interested in the development of furniture design and manufacture in the 19th and 20th centuries in Great Britain. Paul Shutler is a freelance furniture historian and researcher, and can be contacted via Paul Shutler
A DIRECTORY OF 19TH & 20TH CENTURY BRITISH FURNITURE MAKERS AND RETAILERS
We are attempting build a reasonably comprehensive directory of 19th and 20th century British furniture makers and retailers. Paul Shutler, a freelance furniture researcher and historian is the leading light behind this project, and we could not have come this far without referring to publications by both THE FURNITURE HISTORY SOCIETY and the REGIONAL FURNITURE SOCIETY.
If you can add any information to this directory (makers, retailers, dates, biographies, web links, images of marks/stamps/labels and other information) we would be extremely grateful, and we will gladly acknowledge your support and help. Also, please keep up informed of any mistakes we make! Email mark@achome.co.uk
Below the directory you will find a series of biographical essays of several of the major 19th Century British furniture companies. If you wish to publish your essay, we will post and credit your research.
FOR SALE & WANTED
We are seeking good examples of Furniture made by Lamb of Manchester, Gillows, Holland & Sons, Howard & Sons, Collinson and Lock, Morris & Company, Heal's of London, Jackson & Graham, The Guild of Handicraft, William Watt, Liberty & Co.
A HISTORY OF GILLOWS OF LANCASTER and WARING & GILLOW
1731-1986
A Company History
The firm of Gillows of Lancaster can be traced back to Robert Gillow (1704-72) in 1730, having served an apprenticeship as a joiner. During the 1730's he began to exploit the lucrative West Indies trade exporting mahogany furniture and importing rum and sugar. Following his death in 1772, the business was continued by his two sons, Richard (1734-1811) and Robert (1745-93). In 1764 a London branch of Gillows was established at 176 Oxford Road, now Oxford Street, by Thomas Gillow and William Taylor. The firm rapidly established a reputation for supplying high quality furniture to the richest families in the country.
During the final years of the 19th century the company ran into financial difficulty and from 1897 began a loose financial arrangement with Waring of Liverpool, an arrangement legally ratified by the establishment of Waring and Gillow in 1903. Warings of Liverpool were founded by John Waring, who arrived in the city from Belfast in 1835 and established a wholesale cabinet making business. He was succeeded by his son Samuel James Waring who rapidly expanded the business during the 1880's, furnishing hotels and public buildings throughout Europe. He also founded Waning-White Building Company which built the Liverpool Corn Exchange, Selfridge's department store and the Ritz Hotel.
Gillows had established a reputation for the outfitting of luxury yachts and liners, including the Royal Yacht "Victoria and Albert", liners "Lusitania", "Heliopolis" and "Cairo", RMS "Queen Mary" (1934) and "Queen Elizabeth" (1946) for Cunard. During
