Cox, James & Son

Oxford Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; chair manufacturers (fl.1850-1935)

James Cox & Sons began trading in 1850 and by 1870 employed a workforce of 150 with, for a while, a separate cabinet making works. Their factory was one of the first in the town to be lit by gas. In addition to selling chairs throughout England, there was also a considerable export business, even to Australia. Ebenezer Gomme, founder of E. Gomme Ltd, was apprenticed to Cox (for whom his father had also worked) as had Charles E. Skull. It has also been suggested that Cox sub-contracted work to local chair-bodgers and certainly the majority of the firm’s workforce was local, including some who had relocated from London to the countryside of Buckinghamshire.

They were recorded as chair and couch manufacturers inThe Furniture Gazette Directory, 1876 & 1877, and The Furniture Gazette: Classified List of the Furniture, Upholstery, and Allied Trades (1886). Cox first advertised in The Furniture Gazette, 28 October 1876, and continued to do so until at least 1886. This same publication recorded various exhibitions in which Cox participated and commissions:

• 70,000 chairs to the Crystal Palace Company at a rate of 500 per day [21 April 1877]
• The Furniture Exhibition, Islington, 1881 [6 August 1881]
• 2nd Furniture Trades Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, 1882, illus. [25 March 1882 & 13 May 1882]
• 3rd Furniture Trades Exhibition, 1883, illus. [31 March 1883]

The firm was also mentioned in an article on the Chair Makers’ Association of High Wycombe [The Furniture Gazette, 16 March 1878].

From surviving catalogues it appears the firm made every sort of chair, from basic church and schoolroom chairs to reproductions of fine 18th century ‘antique’ styles. By 1900 much of their furniture was in a Sheraton-style, some made in fumed oak and bedsteads in Cuban mahogany. From 1897 the firm was a key chair supplier to Heal’s. At this date a ladderback rush-seated chair, no. ‘918’, was manufactured by Cox for the Tottenham Court Road shop. Also the rush-seated chairs sold with Ambrose Heal’s successful St Ives bedroom suite came from Cox (model no. 1381) and chairs for the Newlyn suite (model no. 1442), the Bushey suite (model no. 1442 with square legs), and a little later the Chelsea suite (model no. 1382) and the ‘240’ suite (model no. 1385). In fumed oak finish, the latter was priced by Heal’s at 35 shillings. Six were sold in 1898 and three dozen in 1900.

A local paper suggested that the Cox factory was the source of Morris & Co.’s Sussex chairs but, although not confirmed, they were definitely the makers of Heal’s version of the Sussex chair (Heal’s model no. 1406 – Cox no. 3041). The simple rush-seated ladderback chairs (later referred to as Letchworth chairs) were made by Cox and retailed by Heal’s from 1905 onwards as models nos 953 and 954. These chairs bore a similarity with the model of designed by M. H. Baillie Scott and manufactured by J. P. White at the Pyghtle Works, illustrated in the latter’s catalogue of 1901.

Agius believed that Pyghtle stopped production of the chairs after 1905, and it was possible that the rights to these designs passed from White to Cox at this date. Cox also supplied Heal’s with Windsor chairs which were sold as part of the ‘Cottage Furniture’ collection. The three-seater Windsor settees, either wheel-backed or stick-backed, were retailed by Heal’s at £3 5s.  Cox certainly produced quotes for producing Heal’s ‘Portcullis’ dining chair in chestnut and oak, both unpolished, but it is possible that Cox was not the only manufacturer of these. Examples of Cox’s chairs made for Heal’s are illus. Heal (2014) pp. 244-250.

The Cox factory closed down around 1935, at which time production of the Letchworth chairs was taken over by another High Wycombe firm, Boreham.

Sources: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978); Heal, Sir Ambrose Heal and the Heal Cabinet Factory 1897-1939 (2014).