Barnard, Bishop and Barnard (1846-1876)
Barnard, Bishop and Barnard
London and Norwich, Norfolk; metal furniture makers (fl.1846-86)
The founder of the Norwich firm, Charles Barnard, entered into partnership with John Bishop in 1846. The name changed to Barnard, Bishop and Barnard in 1859 with the arrival of two of Charles’ sons.
The early prosperity of the firm was based on the manufacture of household and garden equipment. The production of ornamental ironwork commenced in 1851 and celebrated with a prize-winning hinge and a doorknocker at the Great Exhibition. In addition to ‘artistic’ cast iron metal furniture, the firm made chairs, dressing-tables, lamps and other household equipment using wire, bent cold and usually gilt. A pair of metal garden chairs is illus. Aslin (1962), pl. 49).
Decorative fire surrounds were also a speciality of the company providing an outlet for the early tile production of the Morris firm. The partnership between the firm’s chief craftsman, Frank Ames (1826-1912), and the Norwich architect and designer, Thomas Jeckyll, resulted in a spectacular contribution to ornamental ironwork of the mid-late 19th century, starting with the Norwich Gates, acclaimed at the 1862 Exhibition. In 1863 these gates were the wedding gift from the Gentlemen of Norwich to the Prince of Wales and his bride, Alexandra of Denmark and were installed at Sandringham. The Furniture Gazette (24 May 1873) recorded the firm displayed ironwork flower-stands, reading-lamps, bookstands, brackets and an inlaid dressing table to the ‘Prince’s Room’, and to an adjacent room at the 1873 Vienna World Exhibition.
The firm also exhibited a wrought iron gate, the celebrated railings from the Sunflower Pavilion and a wrought iron flower stand at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876 (the latter two illus. Meyer (2006), p. 213). Jeckyll also designed fire hearth furniture and cast-iron garden furniture for manufacture by the firm and at the 1876 Paris Exhibition they exhibited the celebrated Sunflower andirons or chenets, and a fire basket (illus. Soros and Arbuthnot (2003), p. 229-233 & Meyer (2006), p. 239).
The Furniture Gazette (21 September 1878) announced the firm had received a bronze medal for garden furniture at the 1878 Paris Universelle Exposition. They also participated in the 1883 Furniture Exhibition, Agricultural Hall [The Furniture Gazette, 31 March 1883] and displayed church furniture at an ecclesiastical art exhibition held in St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Hall, Norfolk in 1889 [The Furniture Gazette, 1 July 1889].
By 1886 the firm had the address of Queen Victoria Street, London and a telegraphic address of ‘Barnards, London or Norwich’ [The Furniture Gazette, 1 January 1886].
Sources: Aslin, 19th Century English Furniture (1962); Gere & Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design. From Pugin to Mackintosh (1993); Soros and Arbuthnot, Thomas Jeckyll, Architect and Designer 1827-1871 (2003); Meyer, Great Exhibitions. London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia. 1851-1900 (2006).
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Ornamentation/Design