Gillows of Lancaster
Two Centuries of English Furniture

Judith Dunn

Gillows might not be as prestigious a name in English furniture as Chippendale, Hepplewhite or Sheraton, but the firm, based in Lancaster in northwest England, outlasted all of them. The history of Gillows, from the early eighteenth century to the early twentieth, encapsulates the history of English furniture and its manufacture.

Robert Gillow began making furniture around 1730, some 20 years before Thomas Chippendale, and developed first a national and then an international reputation as a supplier of quality furniture to the upper middle classes, the landed gentry, and the aristocracy. The company won commissions to furnish and decorate public buildings in Australia, South Africa, India, Russia, Germany, France and the U.S., and it also executed Pugin’s designs for London’s Palace of Westminster from 1840.

If Gillows is less of a household name than Chippendale, Sheraton or Hepplewhite, it is because the firm kept its pattern books, the Estimate Sketch Books, a closely guarded secret, for craftsmen and customers only. Gillows of Lancaster boasted the widest stock outside London, and, uniquely for a provincial company in the eighteenth century, had workshops and showrooms in the capital.

The Gillow Family
The Gillows are an old established Catholic family, tracing their origins to medieval times. The faith was to prove a useful business asset; many landed Catholic families became Gillow customers. As a beleaguered minority, debarred from public office, Catholics actively supported each other in business.

Founder Robert Gillow (1704-1772) went to Lancaster in 1718 as an apprentice joiner. He became a Freeman of Lancaster in the mayoral year 1727/8 (anyone wishing to set up in business had to be a Freeman of the city) and went into partnership as a cabinet-maker in 1728 with another Catholic, George Haresnape.

Robert Gillow had several sons, of whom two, Richard (1734-1811) and Robert (1745-1793), joined him in business. Richard II became a Freeman in 1754/5. Robert Gillow was well aware that a successful cabinetmaker needed to be schooled in all aspects of furnishing and interior design, so he sent Richard to study architecture in London until 1757.
Robert II worked with his father for a short time before he went to join the “adventure to London” in 1769. He was in sole charge of the London operation until the eldest of Richard’s three sons was of an age to join him six years later. The twin aims of this venture were to keep up with fashions in the capital and to create a London market for goods from Lancaster.

The firm continued as Gillows throughout the nineteenth century. By 1900, it was supplying complete interior decorating schemes – metalwork, stained glass, wallpapers and the whole range of upholstery and soft furnishings as well as furniture. Severe strain on company finances ensued and led to a loose association with Waring of Liverpool from 1897. In 1903, Waring took over Gillows, and Waring & Gillow was established. That was the end of Gillows as a benchmark for quality.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gillows (and later Waring & Gillow) moved into the luxury liner market and furnished many of these floating palaces. The firm survived the Depression, and expanded its range to include Art Deco furniture. After 1945 sea travel declined, new fire regulations for shipping put an end to the cruise liner trade and the firm went bankrupt. In 1962 it was taken over by Great Universal Stores and the Lancaster workshops closed. In 1980 Maple & Co. merged with Waring & Gillow and, in 1990, Maple, Waring & Gillow were taken over by Allied Maples Group where it still survives.

West Indies Connection
The Gillows that matters to collectors of antique furniture maintained its position for 170 years. The family rose from yeoman stock to the status of squire, which it marked by buying Leighton Hall, at Carnforth in Lancashire, in 1827. Its success was due to hard work and thrift, but also to a favorable economic climate. In the mid-eighteenth century, Walpole had brought stability to the English economy. Lancaster expanded dramatically thanks to trade with the West Indies. In 1708, one ship left the port for the Caribbean, by the late 1740s, 15 were leaving each year.

In 1730, Robert Gillow married Agnes Fell, whose family had connections with the West Indies trade. In the 1740s, he began chartering ships to import mahogany and export furniture. The firm enjoyed a near monopoly on the export of Windsor chairs to Jamaica, for example, and contracted work to other cabinetmakers, thus contributing to Lancaster’s industrial expansion. The only interruption to the trade occurred in 1775 – the American War of Independence.

Gillows had detailed knowledge of all the different types of mahogany and the advantage of being primary importers. The firm had its own agents (factors) in the West Indies. Its account books show the economic effects of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) and the American War of Independence (1776-83): the price of mahogany rose by 800 percent in the 70 years between Robert Gillow’s debut and the end of the century.

Gillows continued to extend its West Indies market until Robert’s death in 1772, and also forged links with Baltic ports for supplies of oak and pine. The West Indies trade fell off after 1780, and as a port, Lancaster was overtaken by Liverpool after 1800. But Gillows was solidly established and continued to expand and diversify throughout the nineteenth century.

Furniture
Gillows supplied large quantities of craftsman-made furniture to the middle and upper middle classes and to wealthy Londoners and provincial landowners. The firm has sometimes been dismissed as a mere follower of fashion, sound but unimaginative and unpretentious. But what it did, it did very well – by the 1780s Gillows was known for a simplicity and concentration of line, and for clever use of convex and concave surfaces and planes.

As well as working in solid mahogany, Gillows made veneered and painted furniture, and often used japanning to imitate inlay. As textiles came down in price, the firm moved into upholstery – staying ahead of the game in 1785 when it sent an upholsterer from London to work in the Lancaster factory.

Gillows was not a slave to fashion. It made designs by Wyatt, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Chippendale and was always attuned to customers’ tastes. In the provinces these tastes were often conservative, and commissions could last ten years. Furnishing a large house took time, for money was often short after the initial acquisition of the property. By the time Gillows made a library table for Sir James Ibbetson of Denton Hall, near Otley in Yorkshire, the Thomas Chippendale design that it followed was no longer featured in his catalogue, The Director.

Gillows can be credited with many innovations. In the mid-1760s it initiated and exploited the craze for billiard tables and produced a ladies’ version, the trou-madame. It invented the extending dining table – including, in 1800, the telescopic version, the “Patent Imperial.” The firm was inventive in adapting designs to customer’s requirements – 1795 saw a round library table with a revolving top. It fitted secrétaires with movable drawers and partitions, like early filing cabinets, and it even made a bureau bedstead that served as a desk but pulled out to a bed.

The social or “gentleman’s” table, horseshoe-shaped with japanned ice buckets, appeared around 1800, as did bonheurs du jour (ladies’ writing tables). Another version of the social table was semi-circular, with a firescreen along the straight side and a sliding holder for bottles. The Davenport, a lady’s desk, was featured in the sketchbooks from 1816. Gillows made medicine chests, powdering closets, linen presses, clothes horses, squirrel cages, meat safes, and boot jacks, not to mention coffins. The Catholic connection brought orders for tabernacles, crucifixes, altar pieces… the Estimate Sketch Books are a rich source of Georgian social history.

Marks and Identification
Gillows began marking its furniture earlier than many other makers. In the 1770s, a printed label “Gillow and Taylor” was attached. The “Gillows Lancaster” stamp was widespread from 1780 until the mid-nineteenth century, when it was replaced by a simple “Gillow” stamp. In the 1870s, the mark consisted of a capital L, followed by a serial number and the “Gillows Lancaster” stamp. At the end of the nineteenth century came the “Gillow & Co” stamp. Waring & Gillow marked their output with a thin brass plate.

Not all pieces were marked and, when family collections were dispersed, attribution suffered. After the emergence of Waring & Gillow, antique dealers, who were understandably reluctant to have their wares linked with production of inferior quality, often removed the Gillow mark altogether and attributed the piece to Hepplewhite or Sheraton. Experts therefore attribute according to existing documentation, using the archive and assessing the similarity of a piece to an item with known provenance.

The author thanks the following for help with images and information:
Judges’ Lodgings Museum, Church Street, Lancaster [www.lancashire.gov.uk/education/museums].
Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire [www.tattonpark.org].
Bonhams (London) [www.bonhams.com].