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Chorlton & Dugdale; Chorlton & Co., Isaac (1876-1891)

Chorlton & Dugdale; Chorlton & Co., Isaac

Manchester, London, Dublin and Paris; bedstead manufacturers, mattress makers, retailers, invalid furniture manufacturers and cabinet makers (fl.1876-1891)

The firm of Chorlton & Dugdale was listed in The Furniture Gazette Directory, 1876 & 1877, at 76 Higher Ormond Street, Manchester and 63 Watling Street, London. They advertised their Excelsior patent spring mattress in The Furniture Gazette, 22 January 1876, and continued to advertise in this publication until 1891. 

From 1882 their address was recorded as 19 Blackfriars Street, Manchester & 149 Queen Victoria Street, London and were also listed at these addresses in The Furniture Gazette: Classified List of the Furniture, Upholstery, and Allied Trades (1886). The Furniture Gazette, 1 November 1886, listed its telegraphic address of ‘Mattress, Manchester’. 

An article in The Furniture Gazette, 1 April 1887, reported the firm (then named Chorlton & Co., Isaac), with the additional addresses/branches at 15 Fleet Street, Dublin and 114 rue de Turenne, Paris, and that they had been awarded thirty-two Gold and other Prize medals and certificates of Merit at different International and Sanitary Exhibitions. The Furniture Gazette detailed the various exhibitions in which they participated, commissions etc.:

  • 1880 – The Dairy Show, Agricultural Hall, Islington [6 November 1880].
  • 1881 – The Labour Saving Machinery Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, in March, with a display of various invalid furniture and accessories [19 March 1881]. Also The Building Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, in late March, with a display including spring mattresses, inlaid beds & couches, bed rests & pillow dividers [2 April 1881] and The Furniture Exhibition, Agricultural Hall [6 August 1881].
  • 1882 – The 2nd Furniture Trades Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, in May 1882, illus. [25 March & 13 May 1882].
  • 1883 – The 3rd Furniture Trades Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, illus. [31 March & 28 April 1883].
  • 1884 – The Forestry International Exhibition, Edinburgh, with a display of several bedsteads and other invalid furniture [26 July 1884].
  • 1885 - The Sanitary Institute of Great Britain awarded the firm a Certificate of Merit for the Excelsior invalid bedstead, which had a patent appliance to raise an invalid to any height, illus.  [1 August 1885].
  • 1887 – The Manchester Jubilee Exhibition [1 June 1887].
  • 1888 – The Glasgow International Exhibition, illus. [1 July 1888].

The Furniture Gazette, 1 May 1886, reported the firm was taking legal proceedings against Billington Brothers to prevent the infringement of their trade mark and an agreement was reached. An editorial in The Furniture Gazette, 1 April 1888, discussed Isaac Chorlton & Company's recent improvements in metallic spring mattresses (illus.). The Furniture Gazette, 1 August & 15 December 1889, recorded Chorlton took out a patent for invalids’ beds and announced they were manufacturing folding berths for use on board ships and ion train sleeping cars.