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Angus, William & Co. (1879-1960)

Angus, William & Co.

London; importers of American furniture, wholesale cabinet makers, desk makers, chair & couch manufacturers and office furniture manufacturers (fl.1879-1960)

Angus was born in Scotland in 1847 and spent his early life in the U.S.A. This experience led him to recognise that the manufacture of furniture with American technology and British finishing touches could be a successful venture. In 1879 he established a firm importing American furniture at warehouses at 58 Holborn Viaduct, London, moving the following year to large premises at Wenlock Road, City Road. William Angus & Co. first advertised in The Furniture Gazette, 13 November 1880, with the address of Imperial Warehouses, Wenlock Basin, City Road, as wholesale furniture makers & importers of furniture. 

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Incised brass escutcheon plate

Brass escutcheon plate incised ANGUS LONDON attached to a walnut roll-top desk, c. 1910. Georgian Antiques, Scotland

Angus acted as an importer of chairs from American manufacturers such as the Heywood Company, Palmer & Embury of New York, and the Phoenix Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. As sole agents Angus also introduced to the British market the Cutler Desk, a desk with a roll-top closure, pigeon holes and filing drawers (patented in 1875) and this was to be a staple item in his range for many years. He also imported rocking chairs, the ‘Eastlake Cottage’ chairs, and later extended his stock to include tables, bedsteads, chests, ebonized stands and fancy items as well as a range of rattan furniture. His success was recorded in Cabinet Maker & Art Furnisher, 1 June 1881 which described Angus as the ‘chief representative of American furniture’. The firm was one of the largest importers of American furniture, indeed over a maximum two-month period in 1880-81, 500 cases of furniture arrived in London [The Furniture Gazette, 19 March 1881 & 6 August 1881]. Illustrations of some of the firm’s American furniture were published in The Furniture Gazette, 2 September 1882. 

Exhibitions

  • Yorkshire Fine Arts Society Show, Lees, March 1881: Angus exhibited a variety of American walnut, oak and hardwood chairs [The Furniture Gazette, 19 March 1881]
  • 1st Annual Furniture Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, Islington, London, 1881: ‘American Art Furniture’, including chairs and tables was shown by Angus; of particular praise was a Jacobean extension table [The Furniture Gazette, 6 August 1881 & Cabinet Maker, August 1881]
  • 2nd Annual Furniture Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, 1882: Angus’ display included bedroom suites, baby carriages, ebonized fancy furniture, tables, chairs, base rockers and ‘Ladd’s solid comfort swing chair’ [illus. The Furniture Gazette, 13 May 1882]. The Cabinet Maker Exhibition Catalogue described Angus’ trade philosophy as ‘An English finish is put upon Yankee machine work, and this combination of advantage tends to the production of excellent goods’.

On 1 & 8 November 1884 and 1 March 1885, The Furniture Gazette recorded that the firm had moved to 67 & 68 Tabernacle Street in order to be in the centre of the furniture making district, whilst retaining their warehouses at Wenlock Road, City Road.

The new factory and showroom building was 5 storeys, with each floor 100ft x 50ft. The top (or third) floor was used for storage and fitting up of bedroom furniture; components of the pieces being sent over from America in ‘milled out’ condition, for fitting together, and the whole floor could take 600 suites. Bedroom suites were made of walnut, oak, cherry, ash and whitewood. The second floor was used for making mattresses and for storage of Harwood fibre seating. The polishing shop was on first floor with showrooms and offices on the ground floor. A spacious, lofty basement, where from floor to ceiling were piled cases of seat frames, backs, rails etc. of chairs, and stored 20,000-30,000 chairs at any time. On this floor were the furnace, lavatories etc. Each floor was interconnected with speaking tubes and a telephone was installed for use to the outside world.

Angus appealed to trade buyers by offering a degree of exclusivity in their stock selection and his designs were limited in quantity of production.  To promote his business he published his address as Finsbury, London but with his converting mills listed as in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Fitchburg, Mass., U.S.A. His most popular products were chairs and office furniture; the latter was a rapidly growing market in the latter decades of the 19th century.

An advertisement in The Furniture Gazette, 1 March 1885, explained the benefits to the trade of buying the furniture supplied in parts which the purchaser could then fit up and finish, and in this same year William Angus became a founding member of the Furnishing Trades Association [The Furniture Gazette, 1 July 1885].

William Angus & Co. was recorded in The Furniture Gazette: Classified List of the Furniture, Upholstery, and Allied Trades (1886) as cabinet, chair and couch, japanned furniture makers and fancy cabinet manufacturers at 66 & 68 Tabernacle Street, and by 1886 the firm was listed with the telegraphic address of ‘Lignum, London’ [The Furniture Gazette, 1 January 1886].  A further description of the firm with illustrations of their work was published in The Furniture Gazette, 15 January 1890. In that year he was listed as a cabinet maker and had evidently established some type of partnership because the firm was then entitled William Angus & Co. at 66 & 68 Tabernacle Street, EC [Post Office Directory, 1890]. By 1890 he was listed as a cabinet maker and had evidently established some type of partnership because the firm was then entitled William Angus & Co. at 66 & 68 Tabernacle Street, EC [Post Office Directory, 1890]. An article on the firm’s Angus roll-top desk, which was made mainly in oak, or in American walnut and cherrywood, stated that it deemed extremely practical; the general manager of the Edinburgh Exhibition, 1890 stated ‘It is the best and most convenient [desk] I have ever used’ [The Furniture Gazette,15 April 1891].  

Incorporation of the firm as William Angus & Co. Ltd, of 44-52 Paul Street, Finsbury with a branch at Angus Mills, Menstrie, Scotland, took place in 1898. In 1899 Angus built a four-storey ‘model factory’ on Stour Road in Old Ford to produce roll-top desks, the wooden components for which were imported pre-cut from the USA and transported along Regent’s Canal to the factory. The manufacturing process then flowed upwards through the building, culminating in the polishing department on the top storey. The finished objects were then lowered back down for packing and delivery. An advertisement for roll-top desk and rotary and tilting chairs is illustrated in Agius (1978), p. 142.  

By 1902 the firm of William Angus & Co., wholesale cabinet makers had taken over the London Desk & Furniture Co. in Paul Street, Finsbury; these premises were by used by Angus as additional showrooms. Grace’s Guide, 1914, listed William Angus as chairman with other directors being E. P. Bainbridge, Charles J. Nichols and H. T. Wontworth; secretary A. Norman Mott. With a staff of 300-350, the firm’s specialities were roll-top desks, chairs, filing cabinets, Gunn sectional bookcases, ‘Mollis’ upholsterers and contractors to H. M. Government (Office of Works).

During the inter-war years Angus exhibited at the British Industries Fair, 1922. Their stand promoted ‘Mollis’ upholstery and a new product, the extending Majik dining table. 

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advertisement for William Angus & Co
Copyright (Attribution/Credit)
Grace's Guide

Advertisement for the 'Majik' Dining Table by William Angus & Co., Ltd., c. 1922, Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Licence.

William Angus was listed in English census records as a visitor and American merchant at Angus Hotel, 22-23 Bridge Street, Budewell, London (1881) and at 111 Bethune Road, Stoke Newington living on his own means with his wife, Catherine B. (1901). Ship passenger lists record frequent trips to the U.S.A. Angus and his wife travelled to New York on the S. S. Lucania in 1895 and on the S. S. Cedric in 1906 - his trade on both occasions given as a merchant and his address in New York in 1906 was the Astor Hotel.

The 1911 census listed him as a widower and chairman of a public company living at Marylands, Antrim Street, Hampstead (aged 64) and resident of Rothesy, Scotland. He travelled again across the Atlantic on the S.S. Adriatic in 1919; at this date he was recorded as 'chairman' and his main address was The Manor, Tendring, Essex. On this occasion it was stated that he was due to stay in United States for eight weeks.

Angus died on 11 December 1923 at 10 Fairfax Road, Hampstead. His probate records him at The Manor, Tendring, Essex with the probate granted to Charles James Nichols, director. The value of the estate was £19,485. Angus had a brother, Andrew, whose address in 1919 was Forth Vale (House), Cambus, Scotland. 

The final listing for William Angus & Co. Ltd., desk makers in London was at 44-52 Paul Street, Finsbury EC2 in 1940 [Trades' Directory, 1940]. 

The firm continued as office furniture manufacturers, at least at Angus Mills, Scotland, until the 1960s.

Sources: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978); Edwards, ‘British Imports of American Furniture’, Furniture History (1995); Smith & Rogers, Behind the Veneer. The South Shoreditch Furniture Trade and its Buildings (2006).