The Millinery Works - CURRENT exhibition      page 1

THE SIMPSONS of KENDAL 

FINE FURNITURE MAKERS

A selling exhibition

04 - 23 November 2008

Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 6pm, Sunday 12 to 5pm

Arthur Simpson of Kendal (1857-1922) is one of the neglected figures of the English Arts and Crafts movement. This is in part due to his natural reticence (he was a birthright Quaker) and in part due to the majority of his life being spent far from London, on the edge of the English Lake District. His ‘Handicrafts’ workshops supplied craftsman made furniture for over fifty years. Much of his work still survives in the area of its production. This is in marked contrast to that other (later) great Lakeland craftsman, Stanley Davies, whose work was deliberately marketed to be sold countrywide. Simpson served his apprenticeship at Gillow’s in Lancaster where he would have developed his remarkable skill as a wood carver and would have been aware of the Gothic Reform influences prevalent in that firm at the time (1875-1879). After a period travelling the country he set up his first workshop in his native Kendal where he advertised himself as an ‘Architectural and General Wood Carver’ with an eye to the ecclesiastical market. His work from this period, while of high quality, is similar to much other carving of the time, consisting of neo-Gothic or Renaissance forms. This period (1881-1882) was not a great success and Simpson again travelled the country looking for work and inspiration.

Returning to Kendal, in 1885 he once more set up a small workshop which was so successful that by 1887 he had moved to larger premises. Although concentrating on ecclesiastical commissions, he was making furniture for domestic use by 1887. By 1888 he was employing several men and thus ‘The Handicrafts’ was born. 

Simpson’s firm, under his direction until his death in 1922, and then under his son Hubert’s, was in more or less constant production for nearly sixty years. It even managed to keep going during the Great War and the economic slump of the 1930s, only finally succumbing to the lack of timber and staff occasioned by the onset of the Second World War. The workshops formally closed in 1950 and sadly for future historians, much of the Simpson archive was pulped or burned. The domestic work of the Handicrafts can be divided into four broad stylistic areas. They show that despite Simpson’s geographical isolation, he was aware of the latest developments in design. He would then use these influences in his work, producing furniture that is inimitably his own. 

The first period lasting into the 1890s is influenced by his church carving. Early pieces of furniture and smaller domestic objects from this period are usually of traditional form albeit constructed of the finest quality timber. They tend to display a profusion of elaborate floral carving. His early work is either carved with his initials (AWS) or not marked at all.

Simpson had a piece accepted at the prestigious London Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition in 1889 and it was perhaps this breakthrough that led him into a more obvious Arts & Crafts idiom. His pieces from the 1890s up until 1914, the most interesting period of his work, are typified by a reduction in the use of carving, restricting it to a more formalised decoration. He allowed the work to speak for itself, the carving becoming a restrained addition to a plain design. Most of the pieces in this exhibition will date from this period. The sideboard and the corner cupboard are good examples of this more minimal approach. The English oak he used at this time is lighter in tone with exposed tenons, the pieces being beautifully crafted. There is much truth in the remark that Simpson’s furniture can be identified by the colour and quality of the wood alone. The fine hanging coat rack is a good example of the quality of the wood (as well as the carving) that Simpson used.

It was probably at one of these exhibitions that Simpson met C. F. A. Voysey and it was the meeting of the foremost Arts and Crafts architect and designer of the day with the provincial craftsman and carver that was to prove a turning point in Simpson’s career and later reputation. They were unlikely friends, the one urban and sophisticated, the other rural and practical (Simpson would think nothing of walking ten or twelve miles to teach at one of the outlying villages). Such was their friendship that by 1908 Voysey was designing Simpson’s house, Littleholme in Kendal, a modest commission, so one which spoke much of the relationship between them. Simpson also executed several of Voysey’s furniture designs, which were shown at the Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition.

Voysey’s influence on Simpson’s own designs was considerable at this time. The furniture became more architectural, purer in concept. The modest two fold screen displayed here is a good example of this. The open bookshelves too, show Voysey’s influence; no 
extraneous decoration disturbing their line, more emphasis on light and space. Chairs from this period (1900-1910) often have cut outs to the back splat which lighten the feel of the oak and (usually) leather seats. These pieces and many others were made at the same time as his more typical furniture. The Voysey inspired pieces do not appear to have been produced after about 1910.

Simpson was certainly aware of other influences in the Arts and Crafts movement. The bench shown here, from about 1908 with its fine intricate carving shows that he was very much aware of the Celtic Revival movement in Scotland.

In the 1920s there was a demand for more ‘modern’ pieces. Hubert tended to reinvent traditional designs, for example introducing sledge type handles instead of the Rathbone metal ones previously used. Their furniture was exhibited at the Red Rose Guild in Manchester throughout this period. In order to see out the depression the Handicrafts began to sell work by other craftsmen, many of them local.

Simpson’s reputation has always been high in his native Kendal 
(a plaque marks the location of his first workshops). It is hoped that this exhibition will introduce his fine, unpretentious work to a larger audience.

Michael J S Vicary

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