High back Caistor chair with curved crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 3 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 63

A Caistor chair - from John Shadford workshop WS 63

This chair  turned up in a Grantham antique shop: they are just unmistakeable! There are some subtle difference compared to WS 62; no cut outs notched into in the crest rail, no rings on the back spindles and three rings on the legs. These chairs that are attributed to John Shadford in Caistor are really special - by that I mean that this chair design had no predecessor and no evolution. They just appeared in Shadford's notebook and it seems they were made in large quantities for many years.  If you take a moment to consider the traditional Windsor chair, you can see a clear path in the subtle design changes over many years and regions , always being honed to meet the current tastes of fashion - not so with this chair. The reason may be that Shadford deliberately set out to design a new chair in an already extremely competitive market. When he decided to set up in his own business after being an apprentice to William Shirley for 14 years he must have realised that if he was going to stop in Caistor with his mother and their house-renting business he had to produce a different chair to that which was already being made there. Hence he sat down with a clean piece of paper and designed this chair from scratch: this is reinforced by his pencil drawings in his notebook - see these pages reproduced from his notebook He was a remarkable man to produce such a successful design and history does not give him enough credit. This chair is currently on loan to the Caistor Heritage centre, on public display.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 2 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 62

A Caistor chair - from John Shadford workshop WS 62

These spindle back Caistor chairs that appear in John Shadford's notebook just keep turning up. This one appeared at an auction in Sheffield and had been in the vendor's family for many years and had been well cared for judging by the great condition. There is a label stuck underneath saying that it was supplied by Summers Bros of Scarborough.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 3 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 35

Caistor chair - John Shadford workshop WS 35

This chair belongs to Margaret and Keith Mottram. They kindly allowed me to include it on this site.  I think this one started life as a rocker and some adjustment has been made: the underarm support turnings and low arms are typical of a rocker but it is the right height for a conventional chair.  Now look closely at the leg turnings: they vary. If this one had the rocking stays removed it would become very low and frankly uncomfortable. Perhaps this one got returned to Caistor to have a conventional undercarriage put on and it didn't get a matched set of legs. This chair has been in this Lincolnshire family a long time.

Baptised at Caistor on 2nd April 1828 to parents Richard and Frances Shadford, John was the middle of three and was born deaf. His eldest sister was Mary Anne (baptised 2nd January 1826) and the youngest was Frances Rosamond (baptised 25th July 1836) His parents were married at Claxby near Normanby on 6th September 1825 so the first child was born 4 months after the wedding. In the marriage register Richard signs his name in a bold hand and is described as a singleman of Caistor; Frances’s maiden name was Quickfall and the witnesses were her parents William and Anne Quickfall. Oddly the record of Richard’s birth has not been found yet but it is assumed that he was one of many children of the parents Thomas Abey and Jane Shadford from Nettleton. There are other families of Shadfords in this part of Lincolnshire mostly connected with farming.  Richard is recorded throughout the 1830s by the Land tax records, noted as a joiner and paying his dues on a self-owned garden, house and workshop. John’s grandparents, the Quickfalls, were famers near Caistor and both his sisters married farmers (to become Rickells and Grantham in name). All this goes to show that the young John grew up in a comfortable background and used to his father's wood working business.

At the age of 12 John would have witnessed the funeral at Nettleton of his father in 1840. No will or cause of death has been found. However this did not mean that the family became impoverished as the Rate Book for Caistor in 1844 notes that the widow Shadford was collecting rent from 4 properties. Intriguingly the rateable value of the house and shop she was renting to William Shirley was identical in amount to which the Shadford family was living in for the 1840 assessment. Perhaps , after the death of Richard, the remaining Shadford family moved to a small house and rented their former house and workshop to the young Windsor chairmaker from Grantham. It was about this time when John was 16 years old that he became an apprentice to their tenant, William Shirley.

There was another injection of wealth into the family as on 27th Jan 1846: there happens the death of his grandfather, the farmer William Quickfall, whose will makes fascinating reading . He was obviously a well-to-do man as he leaves his farm and premises at Tealby to his brother Samuel at South Kelsey. His remaining estate was still valued at over three thousand pounds and this was divided between his three daughters. John’s mother receiving five hundred pounds cash along with a further three hundred pounds secured by title deeds of property in Caistor as well as a share in the household goods etc.

From here the life of John Shadford may well have become obscured by the passing of time but for the fact that he made entries into a note book which is now in the Lincolnshire Archives and the public can view copies of it on request . In the history of English vernacular chairmaking this book is unique as no other record has been found by any other maker showing designs or drawings . Although the book originally had entries by someone else, the empty pages were used by John to draw chairs and furniture as well as to make notes on the collection of rent from his properties. In 1859 he wrote the words for his business card, saying that he had been apprenticed to William Shirley for over 14 years and was now setting up his own business of chairmaking from the premises vacated by Shirley. The outline of the famous spindle-backed Caistor chair is drawn 5 times.

In 1836, when he was 36, he married Harriot Hansen, a farmer's daughter 43 years old, who had had a daughter a few years before but had since died, so there was no more children and hence no heirs. John died at the age of 62 in 1890, one year after William Shirley, and in his will he leaves all his possessions to his beloved wife.

ⓒ William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

Lincolnshire Caistor lath back high back Windsor armchair with curved crest rail, 5 laths turned stiles, turned underarm supports morticed into saucer arms, straight seat sides, 2 ring leg turnings with vase-shaped feet H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 31

Lincolnshire Caistor lath back high back Windsor armchair WS 31

If it is agreed that WS 30 was made in Caistor then take a good look at this one - compare the legs and stretchers , study those two back turnings, contrast the underarm supports: this surely came from the same workshop.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Lincolnshire Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 2 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 28

High back Lincolnshire Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail WS 28

Probably the most easily recognised of all Lincolnshire-made chairs: this one is often referred to as a Caistor Chair as it was made by John Shadford of Caistor. The most remarkable thing about him was that he was born deaf, but it did not stop him setting up his own business in his late twenties and producing these chairs. I have seen a good number of them, usual as rockers or short legged variety, but this one is of standard seat height. You will have noted all the distinctive spindle turnings at the back: these would have taken longer to make than the conventional bow back windsors but there is no steam bending involved. There is an inherent weakness in these chairs though: where the armrest meets the back turned stile is only glued and they do have a tendency to come loose. John Shadford was apprenticed to William Shirley junior who had learnt chairmaking skills from his father (William Shirley senior) in Grantham.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020