Leicestershire curved comb back Windsor armchair by William Rowe of Hallaton, with 14 long spindles, 8 short, crook underarms, bell shaped seat, ring and cove leg turnings, front and back, H stretcher with barrels

WS 170 Leicestershire curved comb back Windsor armchair by William Rowe of Hallaton

It is immediately obvious that whoever made this chair was well versed in his trade and could be considered to be a professional chairmaker. While I have not seen another chair quite like this one there are many pointers to where the maker learnt his trade. For instance, the bell shaped seat (in plan view) is just typical of what I would expect from a Lincolnshire maker as are the rings and cove decoration to the front legs. The seat appears to be made from ash and the rest of the chair from yew wood with spindles for back support - all point to an association to early Lincolnshire chairmakers circa 1800 - 1820.

Pictured below is the undercarriage of the chair.  Some features that point to a different influence of manufacture: one design element that appears and which I have never seen on a Lincolnshire chair is the elegant barrel-shaped lozenges on each of the three stretchers. Identical stretchers may be found on this East Anglian chair. The double ring design at the bottom of the legs is found on Mendlesham chairs and others associated with East Anglia.   - I have never seen these on a signed Lincolnshire chair. 

The back spindles being united with a top comb rail may lead some to think that this is a Lincolnshire trait, which is right as a design feature, but it would be wrong by the date, as these did not appear on early chairs but seem to become fashionable after 1835. The number of spindles in the back are 14 long and 8 short which would appear to be excessively high in total and would add nothing extra to its structural integrity; a typical example would be this chair by Amos that has 9 long and 8 short. The size and shape of the top comb is unique as far as I know as are the two outside long back spindles with their beautifully crafted lengths of different diameters. The fact that the two frontmost short spindles have been let through and wedged into the armbow points to superior craftsmanship and has only rarely been recorded before by me.  The final point to note is that the back spindles holes have been drilled right through the seat; the only Lincolnshire chairs that have this feature are those probably made by Joseph Newton of Fenton which are much earlier, dating from 1725 to 1750.  There are Nottinghamshire chairs recorded with this feature from the Retford and Rockley workshops, particularly associated with William Wheatland.

Finally I come to the name stamp - and I find this a real conundrum: most makers who their own name stamps used them with large letters either on the upper surface of the seat or on a side edge; these were put there with the expressed purpose of advertising their wares. The impressed mark of W Rowe is more typical of a retailer but I do not think this applies in this case. It could be easily explained by the fact that the name stamp is the same one used by Mr William Rowe to stamp his own tools in his chest to identify his possessions.

Research into this maker only shows he was recorded working in Hallaton in Leicestershire in the early 1840's. There is a John Rowe, chair turner in Pigot's 1835 Directory in Hallaton. William Rowe appears as chair maker in the 1841 Pigot's Directory. There are 2 William Rowes in the 1841 Poll Book for the Hundred of Gartree which included Hallaton. There are 3 William Rowes in the 1841 census in Hallaton, one a shoemaker aged 55, one a grazier aged 80 and one aged 65 'of independent means'.

He may well have had a business employing several journeymen, as did the Lincolnshire chairmakers, and one of them could have made this chair after learning his trade as an apprentice somewhere in East Anglia and incorporating the design features common to that area. Alternatively, it may be found after more research that it was Mr Rowe who originally came from EA and learnt his trade there. It may be possible to unravel this dichotomy with time and research in the archives.

Below is a picture of the edge of the seat of this chair, clearly showing the impressed name of W ROWE. There are two impressions on this side, one of which is upside down; there is one on the other edge the right way up. It is more like a tool stamp - unlike the larger ones that the Lincolnshire chairmakers used. To date this is the only stamped chair that has been recorded by this maker.

W Rowe stamp

This chair appears at NE 114 on page 135 of Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990).  I did not take these pictures as this chair has been in the USA for the last 40 years. Some time ago while I was talking chairs with Bill Cotton, I expressed a desire to see this chair. That's when Bill told me that it had been taken overseas many years ago. He did remember that a dealer in Burford sold it and gave me his name; I used the internet to try and track him down but with no success, so I just contacted the antique dealers in Burford until I found one who knew where the original dealer was and gave me his contact details.  I tracked this gentleman down in his retirement home on the South Coast and he remembered selling the chair to an American serviceman and as luck would have it he still had some contact details for him. So after some more hunting around on the internet I eventually made contact with the owner of this chair. He was very pleased to hear of my interest in it and after a short while some photographs that his grand daughter had taken arrived as email attachments - and what a wonderful revelation they were! Many thanks to Del Francis in California for allowing me to use these pictures of his chair; they make a very exciting contribution to the understanding of the vernacular chair making in Eastern England.

© William Sergeant 2014 and 2020