Lincolnshire Windsor hoop back side chair with 6 long spindles, straight seat sides, ring and cove turned front legs with lower ring, plain back legs, H stretcher WS 147

Lincolnshire Windsor hoop back side chair with 6 long spindles, straight seat sides, ring and cove turned front legs with lower ring, plain back legs, H stretcher WS 147

The first spindle back side chair to be recorded; faintly stamped at the upper rear of the seat TAYLOR GRANTHAM. Made entirely out of ash and from the same farmhouse as WS 146. It's hardly surprising that one of this pattern by this maker would eventually turn up as all the Grantham makers appear to have made this design and figure NE41 at p. 121 of Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990) is the same but with a back splat.

So which one of the Taylors made this one - Cotton lists James, John, John junior, Joseph and William in the back of his book - it could be any of them? However recent research has discovered another unrecorded Taylor by the name of Roger. Let me explain: while browsing through some old paper advertisements I came across one seeking a Journeyman Windsor chair maker who would have constant employ and wages according to his merit by applying to Mr Roger Taylor, Windsor chairmaker of Grantham. This was in the Stamford Mercury in July 1800. Further investigation has revealed that on 7th Jan 1782 there was the marriage of Roger Taylor to Sophia Smith and later that year, on 15th October, there was registered the birth of their first child John. He was followed by William in March 1785 and James in July 1787.  I have Robert Williams to thank for informing me that a William Taylor was apprenticed to William Allison, joiner , of Grantham on the 6th December 1799 for the sum of £21 for 7 years. This means that there is a strong possibility that in the 1780s or 1790s Windsor chairs were being made in Grantham by Roger Taylor and that the three chairmakers mentioned by Cotton all were the children or grandchildren of Roger.

I quickly found out that Roger died and was buried in Grantham one year after he put the advertisement in the paper, in Oct 1801. This means that his eldest son John would have been only 17 years old at the time of his death and not even finished his apprenticeship, if he was doing one. So who would have run the business of chairmaking? Well the answer lies in an advertisement that appeared in the Stamford Mercury in June 1802 the year after the death of Roger: his wife Sophia placed an advertisement saying that she is to continue the business and asking for journeymen to apply for work making chairs for her.  The advertisement was signed by Mrs S. Taylor, Windsor and Fancy Chair-manufacturer. 

Another advertisement by by Mrs S. Taylor, Windsor and Fancy Chair-manufacturer, appeared in the Stamford Mercury in February 1809. It was advertising for an apprentice to start immediately at Windsor and fancy chair-manufacturer and after the time served the young man would be entitled to become a Freeman of the borough of Grantham.

On a final note, I would like you to ponder on this: the burial register notes that Roger was 38 at the time of his death which means that if he had done an apprenticeship it would have been in the late 1770s, which really places him at the very beginning of the Grantham Windsor chair making tradition Who taught him and where did he learn his skills?

Click on this link to see me give a talk to the Regional Furniture Society conference in London, March 2019, about the Taylors of Grantham.

© William Sergeant 2014 and 2020