Bell, Peter Booth

Lancaster and Preston, Lancs.; cabinet maker (fl.1826-d.1872)

The son of Ellen Booth of Lancaster, he was apprenticed to Redmayne, cabinetmaker of Lancaster, for seven years from 1 July 1826. Nothing is known about Bell's movements until 1840 when he was a junior partner in the firm of John Lodge, Joseph Gunson and Peter Booth Bell, cabinetmakers and upholsterers of Lancaster and Preston. They took on William Bowsfield and Richard Baynes in 1840 as apprentices.

Sometime during the 1840s John Lodge ceased to be a partner and by 1849, when they took on Richard William as their apprentice, Peter B. Bell had been joined by Richard Coupland and the firm traded as ‘Bell & Coupland' from premises in Preston and extensive premises in Lancaster until about 1913. Bell supervised the Preston shop and Coupland the Lancaster shop. From 1852-60 Bell and Coupland took on four more apprentices: William Patterson in 1852, Thomas Maudsley and Robert Patterson in 1854 and Reuben Casson in 1860. The firm used a distinctive brass embossed plaque ‘Bell & Coupland Cabinetmakers & Upholsterers Lancaster’, several examples of which have been recorded on their furniture. Bell & Coupland also submitted fifteen drawings of furniture in the Gothic style for the new annexe of the Lancaster County asylum in 1883, now Moor Hospital. Lodge & Bell and Bell & Coupland had extensive warerooms and workshops in Stonewell, Moor Lane (illus. Stuart (2008), pls B9 and B100 which were described in detail in 1894 in A Graphic Description of Lancaster and Morecambe, 1894, pp 82-88. Peter Booth Bell died 5 October 1872 aged sixty-two years and was buried at Penwortham. Richard Coupland died in July 1884.

Sources: Gilbert, English Vernacular Furniture 1750-1900 (1991); Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840 (2008), II, pp 217-8.