User:Sally Festing/Sandbox/Bath Cabinet Makers
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Bath Cabinet Makers Ltd. (BCM) traded for sixty-seven years (1892-1959) (1) in a city with a history of furniture-making.(2) Under management of CA Richter (CAR) (1876-1945) until 1934, its work was regularly illustrated in The Studio and the company soon began to receive international prizes. (3) A variety of styles was produced, from Parisian-inspired versions of ‘Adam’ to Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts and streamlined Modern in a huge range of woods, solid and veneer.(4) Important contracts included furniture and fittings for Cunard’s luxury liners, the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. (5) A proportion of its output was mass-produced for cheaper markets although the workmanship was always of a high standard. Built in 1895, the factory on Bellots Road, Twerton was one of the largest and best equipped in the country.(6) Bath Timber Supply Ltd., and Bath Guild of Handicraft and Design were set up in the 1920s to support BCM. George Montague Ellwood designed many of BCM Art Nouveau pieces around the turn of the century but most of their furniture was designed by the Richter brothers, Charles Augustus (1867-1946), Herbert Davis (1874-1955) (HDR) and their team. (7) CAR became president of the National Federation of Furniture Trades (8) and was appointed to Lord Gorell’s Commission on improving the standard of art in industry.(9) In JC Rogers’ Modern English Furniture (1930) he is one of forty-two designers listed beside the better-known Barnsleys and Edwin Lutyens.(10) BCM owed its existence to a strike at F and A Norris Brothers’ Bath’s Albion Cabinet Works in December 1891. The following year, CAR, an employee at Albion, launched the Bath & West Co-operative Cabinet Makers Ltd. The intention was determinedly idealistic; men needed jobs and the city provided enterprise. Shareholders were represented by a committee five members, one of whom was the influential Cedric Chivers from the bookbinding family. Richter was elected General Manager the following month, and work began in rented accommodation.(11) In 1892 the name was contracted to The Bath Cabinet Makers Ltd. The next year, CAR walked out, objecting to the Shareholders’ reluctance to expand. Two years later the Society called him back as Managing Director, with HDR Head of the Design Department.(12) HDR’s drawings were reproduced in all the relevant leading architectural journals.(14) In 1895 the brothers collaborated with Messrs Silcock and Reay on the design of a distinctive new building.(13) In 1900, the firm won five medals at the Paris World Exhibition. (15) Prior to World War I, BCM furniture was on constant display in London stores such as Maples and Harrods. (16) While HDR left BCM in 1906 to become a painter, (17) CAR’s hope of early retirement were interrupted by the war. The factories were converted to manufacture aircraft parts, to be restored to panelling, joinery and high-class furniture when the war ended. The family interest was extended when HDR’s wife, Gertrude, and CAR’s sister, Florence Schottler, launched The Guild of Handicraft and Design to make soft furnishings for large contracts coming in from America, India and Germany. (18) Further recognition was earned at the Wembley Exhibition of 1924 and the Paris Exhibition of 1925.(19) The 1930s depression affected demand for luxury furniture but CAR managed to keep his firm afloat. William Morris considered that machines were responsible for bad design. As handwork was necessarily time-consuming, his furniture was too expensive for the very people he wanted to supply. In contrast, CAR, a committed socialist and natural progressive, deplored asking men to perform arduous tasks that could easily be accomplished by machine. (20) In BCM’s early days, he set up an Education Committee and ran games and dramatic clubs.(21) Acquainted with GB Shaw , he asked the playwright down to Bath for a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra. (22) In 1959 the firm was taken over by Yatton Furniture, its name and the goodwill lasted for more than a century. (23) Plagiarism had been a continual battle. From the outset BCM’s prolific output and range of styles led to pirating by other companies. (24) This is part of reason that so much of their work has been attributed to other firms. Prestigious museums throughout the country, even the Victoria and Albert have believed BCM furniture was made by Wylie and Lochhead.(25)
References
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1.Sally Festing (1998), Bath History VII, p 146 2. Furniture Made in Bath (1985), Holburne Musuem Exhibition Catalogue. 3. Festing, p157. 4. Payne R (1981), The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1890-1914 5: p23 5. Festing, p162. 6. Payne, p23. 7. Payne, p23 8. Festing, p 162. 9. The Furnishing World (1946) 24 May, Obituary: The Late Mr C.A. Richter, p 80. 10. Rogers JC (1930), Country Life Publications, Modern English Furniture. ? 11. Festing, p153-4. 12. Keevil HT (1956), History of Bath Cabinet Makers p 17. 13. Festing, pp 157 & 158 (ill). 14. Granville Fell (1900), from a special edition of the Art Journal published for the Paris World Exhibition. 15. Granville Fell H. (1935), F. Lewis Ltd., Benfleet, Essex, The Art of H Davis Richter, pp 13-14. 16. Festing, p 161. 17. Granville Fell p16. 18. Festing, p 162. 19. Ibid, p 162. 20. Festing p 147. 21. Festing, p 157. 22. Festing, p 164. 23. Festing, p 146. 24. Festing, p 160; The Furnishing World (1946) 24 May, Obituary: The Late Mr C.A. Richter, p 80. 25. The Holburne Museum, Bath.