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Annoot & Gale; Charles Annoot & Co. (1850-1891)

Annoot & Gale; Charles Annoot & Co.

New Bond Street, Old Bond Street, Euston Road and Avery Row, London; furniture makers, upholsterers & antique dealers (fl.c.1850-91)

Charles Bernard Annoot (1825-89) was born in Belgium and became naturalised in Britain in 1854. By 1841 he was recorded as a 20 year old clerk to Francis Deschryver, an antique furniture dealer also from Belgian, at 3 Great Newport Street, Covent Garden, and in 1847 he married Emma Glaister. The baptism record for the one of couple’s daughter, Alice, in October 1847 notes Charles’ occupation as upholsterer in New Bond Street. There were also sons, Charles James (b. 1846) and Louis Alfred (b. 1849-d. 1895) of whom at least the latter entered the upholstery business. 

A partnership of Annoot & Gale traded at 167 New Bond Street from the early 1850s into the 1860s. They were known mainly as furniture makers, with a manufactory at 381 Euston Road and further premises at 1 Avery Row as recorded in the 1859 Post Office Directory. Annoot sold paintings, old French furniture and other antique as well as contemporary furniture and his clients in the 1850s included the collector Ralph Bernal, the 1st Lord Wharncliffe. He worked for Sir Edward Page Turner in 1868, the Duke of Portland in the 1870s and Ferdinand Rothschild in 1874. Annoot was also recorded as having made a copy of a ‘Chippendale kneehole writing-table of the Nostell Priory type’, probably in the 1850s, which was sold at Christie’s in 1870 for £68 5s.

During the partnership of Annoot & Gale (c. 1854-61) they loaned several objects to the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, 1857. On his sole account, Annoot exhibited a cabinet, gilt chairs and a carved centre table at the London International Exhibition, 1862 (Class XXX, exh. 5652). At the Dublin International Exhibition, 1865 he exhibited a 'Buhl cabinet in the style of Louis XIV; bronze and ormolu candelabra, and other fancy furniture' (Section XXVI, exh. 730). In the same year he was listed living at 20 Phillimore Gardens (the whole house).  

There was a sale publicised as the ‘Effects of Mr Charles Annott’, being sold by Messrs Foster on behalf of the inspectors on the premises at 16 Old Bond Street on 3/4 June 1867. The 1873 London directory listed Annoot still at 16 Old Bond Street. In 1879 Annott, aged 54, was convicted of embezzlement of over £3,000 from his 'master', Edward Bradley, a trimmings manufacturer of 20 Lambs Conduit Street and was sentenced to imprisonment for 9 months. The firm, Charles Annoot & Co., continued to be listed at 16 Old Bond Street in Kelly’s Directory, 1880-83. Annoot died in Paris aged 65 on 29 November 1889. The 1891 London Post Office Directory records Radley, Robson & McKay (late Annoot & Co.) at 16 Old Bond Street.  

Sources: Meinertas, ‘The Portland Bill and the Mirrors’, Furniture History (2015); Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers (2009).