Arts & Crafts Manufacturers of the period COLLINSON & LOCK
A HISTORY OF COLLINSON & LOCK 'Art Furnishers', founded with the partnership of F.G. Collinson & G.J. Lock, former employees of Jackson & Graham. Designers employed by the firm included T.E. Collcutt, the architect of their premises; E.W. Godwin, who was paid a retainer to produce exclusive designs for the company from 1872 to 1874, H.W. Batley & Stephen Webb. They made furniture for the new Law Courts to designs by G.E. Street, along with Gillows & Holland & Sons, & began decoration of the Savoy Theatre in 1881. Jackson & Graham was taken over in 1885, at the time when the firm had moved to Oxford Street & begun to focus on expensive commissions for grandiose London houses. The change of direction was not a success, & the firm was taken over by Gillows in 1897. The firm of Collinson & Lock was established in London in the third quarter of the 19th century & quickly achieved both commercial success & a leading position in the field of design. In 1871 the firm issued an impressive illustrated catalogue of 'Artistic furniture', with plates by J. Moyar Smith, assistant to Christopher Dresser, & in 1873 was trading from extensive newly built premises in St Bride Street. The firm continued to produce very high quality items of furniture and soon began to experiment with new materials & designs, becoming especially renowned for their distinctive combinations of rosewood & ivory & their intricate Italianate arabesques, traditional figures & scrolling foliage. This form of decoration clearly points toward the involvement of Stephen Webb, Collinson & Locks chief designer who was later appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. E.W.Godwin was their most important designer & so advanced were his designs in the Japanese style that his worked was plagiarized by many other furniture makers of the period usually in mis-proportioned manner or of inferior quality.
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