6 Antique English Glenister Wycomb Elm Windsor Country Farmhouse Dining Chairs

Description

Six antique Glenister primitive elm dining chairs from Wycombe England. Circa 19th Century.

The Thomas Glenister Company
Temple End, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; chair maker (b. 1837-c.1891)

Glenister’s was founded by Daniel Glenister, a High Wycombe publican, who allowed those who ran up tabs which they could not settle to instead make chairs in lieu of payment. Soon, the sale of chairs became more profitable than the primary business and in the 1841 census he lists his occupation as a chair manufacturer, supporting the theory that the business began in 1839. In the 1851 census Daniel Glenister is listed as having 50 employees.

Thomas was the son of the chair maker, Daniel Glenister. He was apprenticed to Treacher’s furniture factory and then joined his father in business which traded as Daniel Glenister and Son from at least 1861. In the 1860s his brother-in-law Charles Gibbons joined the business and the firm became Glenister and Gibbons for a few years.

In 1873 Thomas took the Moody and Sankey order for 19,300 public hall chairs for Moody’s Mission. This was a mission undertaken by the American evangelists Ira Sankey and Dwight Moody, holding public gatherings in British towns and cities. The chairs were simple wooden-seated models, made in a few weeks by contracting out to William Birch and Walter Skull and many more manufacturers in High Wycombe and Stokenchurch.

The 1881 Census described Glenister as a chair manufacturer employing twenty-five hands and living at Temple End Chair Factory. He had moved to Temple End in 1879 with his family home and manufacturing both at the Temple End site. Initially the site was rented from local landowner, Lord Carrington. It was purchased in 1889 and known as Temple Chair Works until 1908 and then as Thomas Glenister Ltd. In 1889 Glenister became the first chair factory owner to become mayor of High Wycombe. In the 1891 census he was still listed at Temple End and employed fifty-two workers. His son Thomas was then twenty-eight years of age and he and his brother, William were employed in the business.

Five examples of Glenister’s wood, upholstered, cane, rush and perforated seated chairs were illustrated in The Furniture Gazette, 1 May 1888. An editorial in that issue described his sawmills and wood turning, woodworking, upholstery and caning workshops, where Glensiter manufactured chairs of every type in birch, beech, mahogany and 'antique' oak, in either Chippendale or modern styles. Special commissions included a chair presented to Queen Victoria on the occasion of Her Majesty’s Jubilee by the wife of the vicar of Hughenden, the judge’s chairs for the High Court of Justice in The Strand, London, and 3,500 chairs for the Glasgow International Exhibition.

Temple Chair Works was expanded in 1889 with the erection of two workshops, each seventy by twenty feet with the total factory at this date covering four and half square acres. The firm had an order of 3,600 chairs to be made within four weeks [The Furniture Gazette, 15 September 1889]. ‘The Eclipse’, a wood seated, smoking chair & ‘The Gordon’, an upholstered chair are both illustrated in the same edition.

In 1889 Glenister became the first chair factory owner to be elected mayor of High Wycombe. The Furniture Gazette, 15 February 1890, published an article with a photograph of Thomas Glenister; his ‘kindness, generosity and courtesy’ were particularly noted. The latter was exemplified by the gift of new chairs for the High Wycombe Town Hall by Glenister and William Birch.

Ivan Sparkes, Regional Furniture (1995) article includes a photograph of the interior of Glenister’s High Wycombe factory c.1902 and another of c.1910 showing Glenister’s horse drawn chair wagon loaded and about to move off.

There are chairs in Lincoln Cathedral nave stamped ‘GLENISTER MAKER HIGH WYCOMBE’ (illus. Furniture History (1979), pl. 112A). In 1902 Glenister supplied all the seating for the Coronation of King Edward VII. After the Coronation these chairs were given to the persons to whom they were allocated and one is in the collection of at Lanhydrock House.

Condition

Good antique condition, wear and distressing commensurate with age and use, fading, marking, slight variations from chair to chair.

Dimensions

19" x 21" x 34", seat 18"