Cinnamon, Jack; Firmback Works; Cintique

London; chair maker (fl.1914-32)

Cinnamon came to London in 1896, aged nine. After leaving school at fourteen he worked for W. G. Tagg, an upholsterer of Old Ford, where he was trained as a chair-frame maker. 

He married in 1914 and in the same year set up his own business in Dalston as a maker of chair frames and also complete dining chairs. He moved to Cambridge Heath in the early 1920s and his factory was called Firmback Works.  

Jack died in 1932 and the business was then run by his daughter, Rita Lee, the wife of Jack Lee of the furniture making firm of N. Lee & Sons. Later the firm was run by her two brothers, Lionel and Ellis Cinnamon, and the furniture was sold under the brand name of ‘Cintique’. 

Lionel died in 1979 and the business was then managed by his widow, Jacqueline, until sold to Silentnight in 1988.

Source: Massil, Immigrant Furniture Workers in London 1881-1939 (1997).