Here is another typically West Midlands chair. Along with the chair described in my last post, it is of a type seen in Edward Thompson Davis’s mid-19th century painting For What We Are About To Receive, featured in Bill Cotton’s book The English Regional Chair.

This “short-arm” style of chair has been extensively explored in a article by John Boram. With close links to French chairs, this type is found in several English regional styles, including Macclesfield, Sussex and Worcestershire. Indeed, Cotton illustrated a Worcestershire example, by Kerry of Evesham, and suggested it could be the inspiration for the design of the Clissett-MacLaren ladderback, something which is now very much in doubt. In his article, John Boram shows a spindleback example that he attributes to Philip Clissett, though the chair is not stamped “PC” and there are a number of elements that suggest to me that it is not by Clissett. What is clear from John’s article is that this short-arm style can be confidently linked to Worcestershire, and that the appearance of one of these in Davis’s painting does support the idea that they were, for a time, typical of the region.

Our chair is a nice example in cherrywood, and of very light construction, as these typically are. It is pegged at the usual places for a West Midlands chair. In addition, there are a number of pegs at the ends of the stretchers – these may be later additions attempting to stabilise loose joints. The seat is large and low, about 15 inches in height. Maximum height of the chair is about 40 inches. The seat edge protectors may not be original. The arms have a unusual dipped form. Aside from these features, there are a few other points of particular interest.

The arm supports, which pierce the side seat rails, are morticed into the otherwise unmodified upper side stretchers, and held in place with pegs. Often, on this type of chair, the stretcher is enlarged at the point where the arm support enters but, in this case, the stretcher is plain. This does make a link with John Boram’s attributed Clissett short-arm chair, which is built in the same way.

The arm supports are of interest because, like the other West Midlands chair recently discussed, they feature the taper and ball (half-ball) style that is an important aspect of the famous Clissett ladderback. Taken with other evidence, we are beginning to see that this was a feature that Clissett would have at least been aware of, and may well have used long before James MacLaren came along to influence the form of the ladderback.

The slats of the ladder back are very reminiscent of the Clissett ladderback, and similar to those seen on the Kerry chair referred to above. In fact, I’ve seen quite a few West Midlands short-arm chairs with this type of ladder back. Again, they show similarities to French chairs. What particularly interests me are the differences between these chairs and Clissett’s. Clissett’s chairs in the well-known Maclaren or Art Workers Guild style always have the slats shaped from the front, so that you can usually see the curved face running off to the top of each slat. The back of each slat is entirely flat. In contrast, in the chair we are discussing here, the shaping is at the front for the centre part of the slat, and at the back for the side parts.

This shaping at the back of the slat, rather than the front, seems to be common to all the West Midlands short-arm chairs I’ve seen with this style of ladder back. It is also the case in the only two full-arm chairs I know of with this type of ladder back, one of which is uncannily similar to a Clissett ladderback (but clearly isn’t one of his).

But what is really interesting (to me, at least), is that I know of two chairs made by Clissett where the slats are shaped from the back rather than the front. Both are atypical in other ways…

The first is stamped with Clissett’s initials, and is the only known ladderback with a timber seat. It is identical to Clissett’s stamped spindleback chairs in all respects aside from the back.

The second chair looks, at first sight, like a standard Clissett ladderback. but is slightly smaller (see below). We know it’s made by Clissett because it’s a handed-down family piece – and it has the usual workshop scribe marks. But the slats are quite different to the standard ladderback – the centre part is much wider than usual, and the sides are shaped from behind.

My feeling is that these two Clissett-made chairs both pre-date James MacLaren’s visit to Philip’s workshop. The way the slats are made reflects the general way slats were finished in Worcestershire (remember, Clissett was born, and learned his trade, in Worcestershire). So MacLaren’s principal contribution may well have been to influence the way the slats were shaped, resulting in a more elegant back to the chair. All the other elements of this iconic chair seem to have been in place already.

This chair is NOT by Philip Clissett, but I have a few reasons for discussing it here.

Firstly, it’s an armchair version of one of the chairs featured in the painting by Edward Thompson Davis that I discussed in a previous post. It’s likely to have been a common style of chair in the Worcestershire area in the mid-19th century. It was purchased by me from a private seller in Brierley Hill in the West Midlands.

Secondly, there’s a clear link to Clissett’s famous ladderback chair in that this chair has a similar taper and ball arm support (see below). Bill Cotton’s The English Regional Chair contains no clear examples of this particular pattern of support other than Clissett’s chair. A couple of Lincolnshire examples come close (NE196-197), but they lack the ball turning (well, half-ball, in reality). On Clissett’s chair, the underarm support looks at one with the overall Arts and Crafts look of the chair, and might be attributed to the influence of James MacLaren who commissioned the first of these, and made some design input. But the existence of a similar support on a this rather different West Midlands chair proves that it was in use as a local motif long before MacLaren arrived on the scene – there are other chairs that support this point, and I’ll post on them before long.

Thirdly, it’s an example of the sort of local chair that Philip Clissett must have been aware of, and that his own work must have stood alongside.

A more detailed description of this chair would not be amiss. It’s made entirely in ash and, unusually for a West Midlands chair, is pegged only at the rear of the top slat. There are the usual signs that it was made in cleft green wood, so that it would have been held together entirely by the shrinkage of the mortices around the tenons. That this has failed in the case of one of the arm supports is evidence by a large, old, iron nail having been driven into the edge of one of the through tenons.

The chair is quite heavily constructed with legs of about 1½ inches in diameter, tapering to 1¼ inches at the top. Aside from the tapered arm support, the stand out features are the sinuous arms – they are really beautifully shaped (see below). There are vestiges of green paint in places – I haven’t got a clue whether that is original.

Overall height is about 40 inches, about 5 inches shorter than Clissett’s tall chairs. Seat height is 15 inches, about 2 inches lower than Clissett’s adult chairs – low chairs like this seem quite common. But it’s quite a wide chair – the seat measures 21⅜ inches at the front. With the sinuous arms, it will accommodate a substantial person.

There’s a lot of wear to this chair. The top left finial is part worn away. The arm ends are well worn, particularly to the right where much is missing. The lower front rung is well worn, a good indicator of age. But the best indicator of substantial use is the amount of wear to the inside of the arm supports which has completely removed the ring turning at the bottom.

No indication of maker, I'm afraid, which is a pity but pretty standard for chairs from this area.

In his important book The English Regional Chair, Bill Cotton heads his chapter on West Midlands Chairs (which includes an account of the Clissett family) with a photograph of a painting (see page 286). This painting, by the Worcestershire artist Edward Thompson Davis, shows the interior of a West Midlands cottage, and is dated around 1880 (the date is incorrect as Davis died in 1867, and was active as a painter from about 1854).

Bill draws attention to the ladderback chair that the woman is seated on (I’ve shown only a small portion of the painting here) as being in the West Midlands tradition. He doesn’t mention the chair to the left which is rather different, but can still be linked to the West Midlands, albeit to a slightly different thread in the tradition.

This chair is a half-arm ladderback in many respects to the chair illustrated in The English Regional Chair as WM14. These half-arm chairs crop up from time to time in various configurations, and were clearly part of the West Midlands oeuvre. The one shown in the painting has five slats to the back, curved back legs, widely spaced stretchers, no obvious finial, and a rather bulbous arm support. Like the other chair in the painting, it appears to have a rush seat.

The artist, Edward Thompson Davis, is of real interest because he is known for painting local life in Worcestershire, and his work seems to include many interiors. In addition to the one shown here (entitled “For what we are about to receive”), I’ve located another four showing West Midlands style chairs. These are all of the straight-backed variety, very similar to the ladderback in the centre of the image above. None of them show a chair of the half-arm variety (nor, for that matter, a spindleback of the type made by Clissett). A couple of these painting are shown below, one with a four-rung example, and the other with a five-rung.

I’m drawing attention to this for two reasons. Firstly, that there’s a little more in these paintings than was drawn out in The English Regional Chair (that’s not surprising, as we’re 30 years further on, and we have the advantage of internet searching). Secondly, I have examples of both these types of chair showing some characteristics that link them to Clissett’s ladderback. So I can expand further on the minimal link made in Bill Cotton’s book between Clissett and Kerry – or, rather, there is further evidence here that suggests there needn’t have been any direct link at all, merely a working in a particular thread in the West Midlands tradition.

To follow this up, I’ll post on each of these chairs in turn.

You can click on the images below to enlarge them...

In previous posts, and in the chapter on Clissett and the Arts and Crafts Movement, I’ve identified several paintings that include Clissett ladderback chairs as an important part of the composition. Here we have another, this time by William Ratcliffe (1870-1955). It’s up for auction next month (October 2020) at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh, and much of what follows comes from their description of the painting.

Ratcliffe studied wallpaper design in Manchester under Walter Crane. The family moved house, in 1906, from Manchester to Letchworth, the new Garden City with many Arts & Crafts influences, and where we know that many houses were furnished with Clissett’s chairs. A couple of years later, the artist Harold Gilman also moved to Letchworth and became a neighbour of the Ratcliffe family. Under Gilman’s influence, Ratcliffe gave up wallpaper design and took up painting. He was introduced to the Campden Town Group by Gilman, and showed paintings in all three of the group’s exhibitions.

This particular painting is thought to depict the home of Stanley and Signe Parker at 102 Wilbury Road, Letchworth. Several photographs of the interior of this house exist, and they show several Clissett ladderbacks. It certainly seems likely that this is the suggested location, especially as Ratcliffe knew the Parkers, and is known to have visited them.

It’s worth noting that Gilman also painted a room containing a Clissett ladderback. In that instance, the chair almost certainly belonged to Gilman himself.

or a while during my research into Philip Clissett, previously unknown examples of his designs turned up fairly frequently. But the past two or three years have been a barren period, until I was contacted by Stephen Farr. Stephen is related to Philip Clissett, and has recently acquired a chair that appeared to be by Clissett (having the PC stamp) but differed from anything on this website in several respects.
The chair is a high-backed armchair with a rush seat, and it follows the general pattern of Clissett’s spindleback armchairs. But this one has a spindle pattern not previously seen on an armchair, and is an elongated version of the most complex of Clissett’s known patterns – known only from one or two side chairs by Philip himself (chair no 10 on the spindleback chair page), and by his brother-in-law William Cole (chair no 3 in the WC section of the relatives’ chairs page). The pattern is based on other Clissett patterns, but includes a ball with V-cut below at the top, an ovolo with taper below at the bottom, and a double V-cut (instead of the usual single) at the mid-constriction.

While the fancy spindle singles this chair out as something special, additional turned rings on the front legs add to the distinction – there are two extra below each arm support turning, and two extra above the feet. Similar additional rings are seen on the fanciest of Clissett and Cole’s side chairs, which have equivalent fancy spindles.

The last distinctive feature of this chair is the single front stretcher, in contrast to Clissett’s almost universal double stretcher. The only other exception to his double rule are, again, the fanciest of side chairs which sport the only known examples of Clissett pattern-turned stretchers .

Overall, this chair is the most complex armchair by Philip Clissett found to date. Certainly, there will be others out there. Please get in touch if you know of any.

Harold Gilman (1876-1919) was an important member of the Camden Group, a group of artists that included Walter Sickert and Augustus John. This picture, painted in 1916, includes a clear and prominent Clissett chair. The image is known to be of Gilman's own rooms in Maple Street, off Tottenham Court Road. He had previously lived in Letchworth where he may well have come across Clissett's chairs, which we know to have been in a number of houses.

We can only assume that this chair belonged to Gilman himself. Whatever the case, Gilman can be added to the lengthening list of artists and architects who lived with Clissett's chairs.

This painting is in the Kirklees Collection of the Huddersfield Art Gallery. Gilman was the subject of a major exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in 2019.

Ernest Gimson was an important Arts & Crafts architect and designer. As you probably know, he came across Philip Clissett after seeing his chairs at the Art Workers Guild, and subsequently spent some time at Clissett's workshop learning about chairmaking. He designed rush-seated chairs based on what he learned and, after trying his hand at chairmaking, went into partnership with Edward Gardiner who was rather better at it. Gardiner continued to make chairs long after Gimson's death, and first Neville Neal, then Lawrence Neal, brought the Clissett tradition of chairmaking right up to the present day.

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Once Philip Clissett’s chairs started to be used at the Art Workers Guild in the late 1880s, they seem to have become very popular amongst Arts & Crafts practitioners. In time, the demand for this type of chair seems to have filtered into the general furniture trade, and a wide variety of designs appears, all loosely based on the Clissett ladderback. This is just one example.

This chair appeared in Heals of London’s catalogue for 1907 (illustrated here), and was manufactured by William Bartlett of High Wycombe (thanks to Oliver Heal for this information). Heals appears to have started buying them in 1900, and stocked them until at least 1920. There was also a side chair. It’s likely that they were sold more widely than just Heals – Norman & Stacey, Artistic House Furnishers of London also seems to have stocked then (thanks to Paul Shutler for this information).

The chair is constructed in, mainly, fumed oak – I think the stretchers are beech. Fuming is a process involving ammonia that darkens the wood and brings out the grain. The rush seat has been replaced in this particular example, and would originally have had edge protectors, strips of thin wood pinned to the edges of the seat to reduce wear to the rush.

Although the chair looks superficially similar to Clissett’s ladderback, there are many differences; the timber is just one. The chair is obviously factory made, having none of the character of a country, handmade item. There is no pegging; it’s held together entirely by glue. The seat edges are curved, making this appear a rather more sophisticated design. Turnings are different too, and the finished parts are thicker and heavier in appearance. While the overall height of the chair is more or less the same as the Clissett, the arms are higher, and the seat is bigger in all dimensions, particularly in depth. Despite the greater depth, it’s not a particularly comfortable chair to sit in. This seems to be due to a very upright back – despite having a curve to the back legs, the designer failed to get any slope into the back, something that Clissett achieved superbly.

While there could be some concern that these chairs might be directly mistaken for Clissett’s work, but I haven’t (yet) seen that happen. But I have seen them offered for sale by two separate dealers as “designed by Ernest Gimson and possibly made by Edward Gardiner”, and by one saleroom as “attributed to C.R. Mackintosh”. These are convoluted errors that dedicated readers of this website will appreciate.

David Knell's book English Country Furniture (1992) contains a photograph of a Philip Clissett ladderback armchair that was "stated to have been one of a small set bought directly from (Ernest) Gimson by Eric Gill, the calligrapher, as a gift to his sister, Gladys Mary Gill, on the occasion of her marriage in 1909" (see Knell's Figure 299). Knell attributes the chair to Edward Gardiner, Gimson's chairmaker, as so often happens, but it is definitely a Clissett.

In fact, Gill owned at least one Clissett ladderback himself. It can be seen (just, right at the bottom) in the photograph of Gill in his engraving shop in about 1940. Gill was a member of the Art Workers Guild for about five years in the early 20th century, resigning at about the same time as his sister married. He would have known Clissett's chairs from there.

How reliable is the story about the provenance of the set of Clissett chairs that Gill is supposed to have purchased? Well, the chair in Knell's photograph belonged to "a descendant of the original recipient". From Knell's photographic acknowledgements, we can see that this is probably "Mrs R. Stewart-Jones". A little research shows that this is actually the daughter of Gladys Gill by her second marriage. So the provenance is good, and the story reasonable, though it's not possible to corroborate the suggestion that Gimson was obtaining Clissett's chairs for others - essentially acting as an agent.

Except that we know that Gimson bought a good number of chairs from the Clissett workshop as late as 1914, so he clearly stayed in touch with the Clissetts and traded with them, despite having his own chair-making business.