Famous Dales Chippies

December 2004

There were two craftsmen, born around these parts that had a talent with wood. One was Thomas Chippendale, and the other was Mouseman Robert Thompson.

Thomas Chippendale was born in Otley, North Yorkshire, in 1718, his father too was a carpenter. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptised on June 5.

He married Catherine Redshaw in 1748 in London, and five years later he moved his furniture showrooms and workshop to St. Martin's Lane, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life.

In 1754 Chippendale published his wonderful collection, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, a collection of fashionable English furniture design. This was Chippendale's enduring legacy, and shows his gift in adapting existing design styles to the fashion of his time. So influential was the book that the name of Chippendale is often indiscriminately applied to mid-18th century furniture as a whole.

Chippendale used mahogany as a material instead of oak, and brought that wood into general use. He united with upholsterer James Rannie, and when Rannie died his former clerk, Thomas Haig, became Chippendale's business partner. Catherine Chippendale died in 1772, and Thomas remarried in 1775, to Elizabeth Davis.

Chippendale was influenced heavily by the Neoclassical work of architect Robert Adam, with whom he worked on several large projects, notably at Harewood House and Nostell Priory.

Thomas Chippendale died in 1779 and his business was carried on by his son, also named Thomas.

You can see his statue outside the Manor House in Otley.

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Robert Thompson, was born in Kilburn in 1876, the son of the local joiner and wheelwright. He attended the village school, and proved himself to have rather above-average ability. His father was ambitious for him and, hoping to give him greater opportunities arranged an engineering apprenticeship for him. Robert, at 15 years, was sent to the far-off West Yorkshire town of Cleckheaton in 1891, and though he did his best for his father's sake, his heart was never in engineering and in 1894 he eventually persuaded his father to allow him to return to the carpenter's shop in Kilburn.

During his journeys between Kilburn and Cleckheaton Robert visited Ripon and York Cathedrals and recorded his astonishment at the quality and intricacy of the medieval oak furnishings, he found there.
Returning to Kilburn meant Robert had to earn his living. He involved himself in the same work as his father which meant the repair or construction of gates, farm carts, and the like. Robert set about finding traditional hand tools, and teaching himself how to use them. By 1895, Robert Thompson had taken over from his father and to experiment with his own ideas for furniture based generally on the traditional English styles of the 17th century craftsmen.

As more influential people became aware of Robert Thompson's talents his dream began to become reality when in 1919 he was visited by Father Paul Neville, who asked Robert if he could make a large Memorial Cross for the Catholic Cemetery at Ampleforth. This was made and erected and led eventually over the years to the refurbishing of the whole school and much work in the Church.

Thompson involved himself in some splendid church furnishing of the kind which had inspired him in the first place. In his early experiments with various primitive tools, he developed a technique of finishing surfaces of his oak furniture with a pronounced "tooled" effect by using an adze, a medieval tool which had been much used in the past for roughing out the broad shapes of ships' timbers, etc.

His carved Mouse symbol was first registered as a trademark in the 1930's, however the following extracts from a letter written in Roberts own neat handwriting and addressed to the Reverend John H W Fisher, the then Vicar of Berkeley Parish Church, dated February 10th 1949.

"The origin of the Mouse as his mark was almost accidental. He was carving a huge cornice for a screen and he happened to say something about being as poor as a church mouse."I said I will carve a mouse here and did so, and then it struck me, what a lovely trademark".

As commissions started to increase so too did the number of craftsmen and apprentices at the tiny workshop in Kilburn. Staff numbers totalled thirty-five men and boys in the mid 1950's.

In 1955 Robert passed away peacefully, his family by his bedside. He was buried in the small church graveyard at Kilburn overlooking his beloved workshop that was later extended by his two grandsons in 1963.

If ever you get to Hubberholme, pop into the tiny church there and see if you can find all the mice carved into the furniture?

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Page and pictures by CragFace.

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Links

Otley Pictures

Otley History

Thomas Chipendale Furniture

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Hubberholme Pictures

Hubberholme Village

Mouseman Visitor Centre

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