Furniture Making in Hull
The easy availability of timber in Hull encouraged furniture makers to settle there in the 1700s, and this in turn changed the character of the timber trade. Until the mid 1700s most quality furniture was made of walnut, but from the early 1720s mahogany for furniture making began to be imported into London from Jamaica, Cuba and Honduras. #SUBHEADING#Workshops#SUBHEADINGEND# Workshops were run by a master with one or more apprentices and journeymen. Apprenticeship usually lasted seven years, from age 14 to 21. After this an apprentice might stay with the same firm as a journeyman. Sometimes a journeyman would marry the daughter or widow of his master and continue the business himself. Small workshops had little capital and couldn't afford to make much furniture for stock. Throughout the 1700s and into the 1800s every piece of furniture was made to order, although later in the century the more confident makers made display pieces for their shop windows. As the Victorian era progressed, the growth of the prosperous middle classes led to an increased demand for good quality furniture. Larger workshops developed, and these became increasingly mechanised. Even the finest handmade pieces were likely to be made in a large factory, with each piece being worked on by many different people. Even much of the decorative carving could be done by machine. Furniture makers increasingly had an international outlook, with the cabinet maker R. Stratford joining a party of Hull artisans who visited the Paris International Exhibition in 1889. The exhibition would have been an excellent opportunity to view fashionable furniture from all over Europe. #SUBHEADING#Richardson and Sons#SUBHEADINGEND# Richardson and Sons was the largest and most prestigious furniture maker in nineteenth-century Hull. The founder Thomas Richardson claimed to have started the business in 1812. By 1903 Richardson and Sons had been appointed upholsterers to King Edward VII. Richardson and Sons had the skills, materials and machinery to undertake major projects in Hull, including furnishing the Council Chamber of the New Town Hall in 1863. The mayor's and doorkeeper's chairs made by Richardson and Sons for the Town Hall are still preserved in Hull Museums' collections. Also in Hull's collections is a walnut pedestal desk, which may be the desk mentioned by Sheahan in his History of Hull as being part of Richardson's furnishings for the Council Chamber: 'In front of the mayor is a desk, on which rests the mace when the Town Council is assembled'. In 1854 Richardson and Sons made three ornately carved and gilded softwood chairs for Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales to use during their visit to Hull. The chairs were placed in a temporarily converted 'throne room' in the hotel next to Hull station, where the royal party stayed. Another major commission for Richardson and Sons was to furnish the Hull Exchange, which opened in 1866, with solid oak tables, reading desks and chairs. #SUBHEADING#Decline of the furniture industry#SUBHEADINGEND# The First World War largely destroyed Hull's furniture industry. The demand for quality furniture declined sharply and their export trade to Europe ended. Restriction of the use of timber during wartime added to the firms like Richardson and Sons difficulties. The company is not listed anywhere after 1915. This experience was shared by many other Hull furniture makers, and after the First World War Hull was no longer known for its furniture production. The trade did not disappear there were still making in the 1950s.
