IP 3 - A Superior Quality imaginatively designed monumental 1/4 sawn Oak Arts & Crafts sideboard made by Arthur W Simpson of Kendal one of the most important Master Craftsman from the Arts
& Crafts Movement, a leading carver and designer of domestic & ecclesiastical
furniture at the end of the nineteenth & beginning of the 20th century..
He was born in Highgate Kendall on December 7th 1857 in the heart of England's Lake
District, during his childhood he was constantly in trouble with his father for
poaching a pocket knife & cutting sticks from a Willow tree in his garden. As a
child he loathed school & no sooner than his mother had dropped him at school, that
he'd made his escape. He was always carving objects for friends & for favours after
school hours & even took projects to bed with him thus waking up with his bed
sheets filled with wood carvings. At the age of 14 Simpson was adamant he wanted to
become a carver & was apprenticed to Robert Rigg a new cabinet making company who
had recently opened but the work he was given was not much in the line of wood
carving & when he had to make a coffin & was persuaded to help put the body into it
he vowed to leave at the next opportunity. He then heard that Gillows of Lancaster
were looking for an apprentice carver where he went for an interview & gained the
job & started work on Monday the 4th of October 1875 where he stayed learning his
trade for just under 4 years & while at Gillows he made friends with William Murry
a deaf mute who worked at the same bench as Simpson whom he learned to communicate
with on his fingers & learnt a great deal about cabinet making from this excellent
draughtsman & shared many long walks together in their spare time. In September
1879 he left Gillows to pursue more skills & went to Leicester gaining employment
with Samuel Barfield a "Master Carver" himself whom employed around 30 carvers
where he stayed for 15 months & resided with his Uncle Thomas & his Auntie Lizzie
Seddon.
He worked in many parts of the country before settling momentarily in Kendal, where
he opened for business in 1881 at 22a Highgate. Kendall. A short lived experiment
where he came into debt to the sum of £30 over a 12 month period & decided that
Kendall wasn't the best place for a carver to be & on advice went to London to find
work where he was employed by Osmonds. At Osmonds he felt the work they gave him
would not teach him much & continued looking for work traipsing from workshop to
workshop until he gained employment with William Aumonier's in Tottenham Court Road
& here he met a very skilful carver called Mackie & learnt a great deal from him in
the short period of 5 month's that he worked for Aumoniers. (He was let go due to
work waning at Aumoniers).
Simpson was known to love walking almost as much as he loved to work with wood & it
was at this point in his life after he had been made redundant at Aumoniers that he
decided to walk 252 miles home to Kendall to be the best man for his cousins
wedding to be held on the 31st of August 1882. After the wedding he set off in
search of more work where he gained employment in Altringham for H. Faulkner
Armitage although little is known of his work there it seems he stayed in
Altringham until sometime in 1885 when he returned to Kendal.
From 1885 he taught in local villages & from 1886 he taught classes at the
Keswick School of Industrial Art while doing carving for church interiors. Also in
1886 Simpson employed his first employee 'Tom Dixon' on April 9th & therefore it
must be at this point that the beginnings of what would later become "The
Handicrafts" evolved although the name "The Handicrafts" wouldn't be introduced
until the end of Queen Victoria's reign. In the summer of 1887 he became engaged to
Jane Davidson while on holiday in the Isle of Man & they were married in March 1888.
In this year he was also employing a number of craftsmen all involved with church &
domestic interiors, carving & making furniture. The workshops were originally at
Berry's Yard in Kendal but later moved to Queen Katherine Buildings in the
Christmas of 1896 & "The Handicrafts" was not coined until 1901 when a new showroom
was opened in Windermere & it was this showroom which was originally named as "The
Handicrafts", the company name which would continue until the company's end in 1951
was not transferred to the workshops at Queen Katherine Buildings until 1906.
Arthur Simpson made furniture to designs by C.F.A.Voysey & interior work in houses
which Voysey designed, Voysey was one of the most famous & influential Architect/Designers of the
Arts & Crafts Movement known for his superior architectural achievements & the
incrediable simplicity of his designs. He designed from the buildings
conception to everything within the building including the interiors, the furniture,
metal wears, carpets, curtains, wallpapers, lighting, fireplaces right down to the
salt & pepper pot on the dining table, all within the umbrella of the Arts & Crafts
Movement & always impeccably dressed wearing a flamboyant Liberty cravat. Voysey designed a house for
Simpson & his family called Littleholme & Simpson & Voysey became over a long
period great friends yet many people were quite weary of Voysey as he was a very
stern & fastidious man & many including the Simpson family stood in awe of him but
Simpson whom had a very strong will, "stood in Awe of no man".
Arthur Simpson's most famous interior was for Blackwell designed by another famous
Architect/Designer of the period M.H.Ballie Scott, Blackwell is a beautiful
property over looking Lake Windermere & Simpson did most of the internal woodwork
from skirting to staircases carved panelling, doors, exposed beamwork & some
furniture. The house is a monument to Ballie Scott's designs & Simpson's work.
Blackwell is now open to the public & holds regular exhibitions throughout the
year, it is a superb example still with its original period interior & probably the
most important & complete example from the Arts & Crafts Movement in England today.
Arthur Simpson was a genius with wood his precision engineering is so perfect in
his work that I believe he could have made an engine from wood & it would start up
& actually run, albeit for a few seconds.
Throughout this sideboard which is an Amazing Work of Art he has carved 57 florets which are so life like you can almost
smell their scent even the handles are carved rosettes which your hand feels so natural to touch as you pull a drawer open or
pull down the draw bridge doors at each side giving more flat surface area to serve from, the door fronts also bordered with
subtle tiny rosette detailing within it & flowing foliage carving to the edges of the front & side aprons. From a plan view
the front & back legs are sculptured to a curved angular shape which is accentuated at each corner of the serving area where
it then bows out wonderfully to the centre of the front making room for the pine-apple shaped support below. It's twin
stretchers which come together at 45 degrees also with exposed through tenons are a craftsmen's design dream. The raised back
with central enclosure which will display a beautiful object, (this sideboard was probably specifically made to display a
special piece for whom it was designed for) the enclosure, which imitates in some respects the entrance to a Grand Manor
House, with an inscription 'M' & the date for 1917 carved into a scrolled background. To the back a raised low shelf steps up
from the serving area also for displaying more objects yet still leaving a generous proportion of serving area to serve from.
A stunning & superior commissioned example from a genius master craftsman who designed & made some the very best Art
Furniture of The Period. Circa 1917. This piece was without doubt designed & made by Simpson because all the rest of the
craftsmen were serving in the 1st world war with only Arthur & his foreman left to keep the Handicrafts ticking along.
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