Lincolnshire bow back spindle back Windsor armchair stamped T SIMPSON BOSTON with 8 long spindles 6 short, crook underarm support, bell shaped seat with fantail and two angled spindles, ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 with crinoline stretcher WS 130

Lincolnshire bow back spindle back Windsor armchair stamped T SIMPSON BOSTON with 8 long spindles 6 short, crook underarm support, bell shaped seat with fantail and two angled spindles, ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 with crinoline stretcher WS 130

There are several outstanding features that make a Lincolnshire chair easily recognisable from a Thames Valley chair, one of which is that a Lincolnshire chair never has two spindles angled upwards from a fantail from the back of the seat. Well this chair completely disproves the rule!

Thank you to Mitch Mitchell for allowing me to record his chair here. I was allowed to make a brief inspection of this chair before photographing it and I am completely satisfied that it was made in Boston; the legs, spindles, bows and seat are exactly as you would expect so I have no doubt that it was made in the county. A further very rare feature in a Lincolnshire chair is the scribe line round the back bow: this feature is common in Nottinghamshire but almost never found in Lincolnshire.

That just leaves the extra spindles for a back support : well, perhaps this one was made as an experiment to see what was the extra expense and whether or not it made the chair more stable. It's certainly the only armchair that I have ever seen from the East Midlands with this configuration. If you look at the side chair in WS 118 you will see something similar but that chair was made in Nottinghamshire. Perhaps journeymen who had experience in Thames Valley workshops made both chairs.

© William Sergeant 2020

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair with 4 domed ladders, straight back poles with tapered feet, with Lincolnshire front stretcher, double rear and side stretchers, rushing bars, turned front legs with vase feet morticed into the seat frame

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair WS 186

About five years ago I was sent some photographs of two rush seated ladder back chairs that were in a house near to Spilsby. One of them was identical to the chairs in WS 59 and it is of the type that I come across quite regularly. I have been able to trace these sorts of chair to southeast Lincolnshire and I am confident that they were made by the Spikins family of chair makers in Boston and Spalding. The other chair - pictured above - had straight front legs and a front stretcher with the same pattern as the rocking chair in WS 120. Again, I believe that these sorts of chairs come from the southeast Lincolnshire: indeed the rocking chair came out of a junk shop in Bourne.  So the fact these two chairs appeared in Spilsby, an area of the county where I would only expect to find the cabriole front legged chairs like WS 157, got me wondering if I had got my origins of these chairs wrong.

It was after my talk in Spilsby in the spring of 2017 that these two chairs were brought along to my chair surgery open day. I was able to photograph them both and to inquire into their provenance. Their tale was intriguing.

Throughout the nineteenth century there was a successful banking business in Lincolnshire called the Garfit, Claypon & Co Bank that had at one time ten branches throughout the county. In 1891 it merged with another company which was later absorbed into Lloyds. It was at that time when Bartholomew Claypon Garfit - a partner in the business - sold his large house near Boston to buy a large hunting estate near to Spilsby, bringing all his furniture with him. In subsequent years this estate was broken up and part of the furniture found its way into the ownership of a descendant close to Spilsby. It was that family that had brought along these two chairs for me to see.

So my belief that these types of chairs were made in the Boston area was once again re-inforced by the finding out the provenance of them in Spilsby which definitely showed that their history could be linking to the Boston area over 100 years ago.

© William Sergeant 2017 and 2020

Unstamped low bow back Lincolnshire Windsor armchair possibly by Thomas Simpson of Boston with 9 long spindles, 8 short, crook underarm supports, bell-shaped seat, ring and cove front leg turnings with lower ring, plain back legs, H stretcher with dart turning

WS 168 low bow back Windsor armchair possibly by Thomas Simpson of Boston 

I had seen this chair in Newark and on inspection I found there was no makers stamp but I was taken by its unusual form of having a low backbow. Even though I had not seen this design before I decided to leave it. On revisiting the shop several months later it was still there so I was able to negotiate a good deal and it joined my collection. I saw it as a challenge to see if I could work out who had made it. A thorough examination showed facets running along the length of the long spindles indicating that they had been made with a draw knife. I was even more intrigued to find out who the chairmaker was . Another feature was the fact that the two outside long spindles were secured in place by pins that had been driven right through the backbow and were visible from the front and back . This is a rare constructional technique as most makers only leave the pins showing at the back. 

A good indication of the maker is the dimensions of the seat as they used their own template over many years; on measuring this one and comparing the result with all the signed chairs that I have, only two came close . One of these had pins only showing from the back but the other had pins visible from both sides; could that maker have made this one as well? It was a chair that I have had for several years (WS 123) and while I was handling it I noticed for the first time that it too had short spindles shaped with a draw knife, not turned on a lathe. By closing my eyes and using my fingers to feel, the facets running up the spindles were obvious. These chairs surely had to have been made by the same maker. And the name of that maker is T SIMPSON of BOSTON . The only other chair by this maker that I have photographed but was not allowed to touch is in the  V&A and if you read the description of that chair it mentions that components of that chair were made with a draw knife as well. For more details on this maker then please read my notes on WS 123 - there were in fact 3 of them - Grandfather, father and son.

© William Sergeant 2018 and 2020

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Early Windsor chair, appeared at my Spilsby open chair surgery in May 2017, has a provenance that goes back several generations to the Boston area. Ash wood construction, mid 1700’s.