The Society produces
an annual scholarly publication, Regional Furniture, wide ranging
in the scope of the articles included. The submission of suitable
articles is enthusiastically invited and the Society is particularly keen to
encourage young and new writers to progress their research into print. A bursary
scheme exists to assist with some of the costs this might incur.
The 2007 journal on furniture in
churches has been delayed
slightly and will be out shortly, details of the latest available edition, 2006,
can be
found below. Back issues of all earlier
journals are available for purchase,
the current edition is usually only available to members.
Volume XX, The 2006 Journal
A Dictionary of
Norfolk Furniture Makers, 1700-1840
John Stabler
It has been a policy of Regional Furniture, over the past eighteen
years, to print important specialist material that would not be of interest
to mainstream commercial publishers. Cabinet and Chair Makers' Books
of Prices have been a major focus of this effort and price books for Glasgow
and Whitehaven have now been reproduced in complete form. Excerpts
from the chair makers' part of the Norwich Cabinet and Chairs Makers'
Book of Prices were reprinted in Regional Furniture volume II
(1988). These ventures have succeeded in providing exposure of local
characteristics of both common and up market furniture from the regions and
have been used keenly by students and writers on our subject.
Although Regional Furniture has printed some introductory lists of
craftsmen from defined areas (for instance; Edinburgh and Aberdeen), this is
the first full Dictionary of furniture makers from a particular
region to be published by the Society. The author of this Dictionary
of Norfolk Furniture Makers, Dr John Stabler, makes full acknowledgement
of the accomplishment of the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers (1986),
indeed, he made a major contribution to the research for that epic
publication , but he will be amongst the first to admit that such an
undertaking could only be a beginning in the process of mapping our regional
furniture makers. A study of a microcosm, in this case the rather
large English county of Norfolk, using more extensive sources, and with
plates illustrating the trade cards, bills, inscribed marks and examples of
furniture by the makers themselves, must give a deeper insight into a
region's furniture and the dynasties of men and women who made it, thus
continuing the work that the DEFM began.
The once exceedingly wealthy and populous county of Norfolk established a
strong furniture personality at a relatively early date; Society member
Anthony Wells Cole has made a study of that personality in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries (Regional Furniture volume IV, 1990).
Norfolk was prosperous, with a developed consumer culture, but far enough
away from other areas of the UK to remain mysterious to many people.
Therefore, it makes an excellent subject for this debut regional Dictionary.
The fresh information in the dictionary's biographical entries will have a
diverse appeal; we can find, for example, who was making 'India backed'
chairs in 1740, information about an 'election chair' of 1829, the meaning
of the word 'Tristram' and the identity of the man who gilded Holkham Hall's
Palladian glazing bars between 1810-11. This Dictionary is not
simply a list of furniture makers, but a fascinating, living story of an
evolving community of interconnected characters, their families and their
frequently unruly apprentices. It is also perhaps the only publication
where Elizabeth Taylor and Robinson Cruso are able to rub shoulders.
David Jones
