Chivers, Noah

High Holborn, London, upholder and cabinet maker (fl. 1770–93)

The son of the farmer, Thomas Chivers of Warminster, Wiltshire, apprenticed to Thomas Humphreys 5 August 1762, then James Grange 5 June 1765. He was made free of the Upholders’ Company by servitude 4 April 1770.

Chivers first traded from 290 High Holborn, 1772–75 before moving to 308 High Holborn in 1776; from 1783 the number changed to 307.

Image

Copyright (Attribution/Credit)

British Museum

Trade card of Chivers, UPHOLDER, Cabinet-maker, Undertaker & Auctioneer, N^o. 307 near Chancery Lane, Holborn, London, c, 1783 [D,2.1291]. © The Trustees of the British Museum

He appears to have attracted some important customers though their known purchases are for small items only.

• The Croome Court accounts of the Earl of Coventry record the supply of a mahogany tea chest at 18s on 27 June 1776.
• On 23 May 1776 Edward Knight of Wolverley House, Worcestershire, paid £16 14s for a mahogany commode.
• In 1777 a fire screen costing £1 was supplied to Alexander Wedderburn.

Chivers used his trade label to identify some of his furniture, and it has been noted on a harewood and satinwood Pembroke table offered for sale in 1968.

By 1794 he had probably retired from the business and in this year and in 1802 he is recorded living in Bath. A labelled Pembroke table, c. 1785, in harewood with satinwood inlays is illustrated in Gilbert (1996), fig. 197. The label reads ‘NOAH CHIVERS, cabinet-maker, near Chancery Lane, Holborn, London’.

Source: DEFM; Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840 (1996).