Dobson, John

Newcastle, Northumb.; upholder, cabinet maker, carver and japanner (fl. 1792–1816)

Addresses given at 16 Dean St, 1792–96; and 7–8 Mosley St, 1796–1816. Subscribed to Sheraton's Drawing Book, 1793. Advertised in Newcastle Courant, 19 May 1792 that he had commenced in the upholstery business, and ‘is not only at present Master of the French and Turkish mode of fitting up Furniture as now used in London, but assures his friends, the least change of fashions cannot take place, but he will have it sent down immediately’. On 7 May 1796 he announced his removal to ‘more extensive and commodious Premises in Mosley Street’; and advertised again on 19 April 1800, showing the Prince of Wales Feathers. In October 1800 he was paid £4 9s 0d for 'new chairs for the two lodging houses at the low lights' (lighthouse.) On 13 April 1803 announced that he was ‘Back from the South with new stock … Houses furnished throughout, from a cottage to the first mansion … American black birch for sale, a good substitute for mahogany’, at ‘THE TEMPLE OF TASTE’, no. 7 Mosley St. On 23 April 1808 he claimed that ‘The whole of the fashionable work is executed under his own roof & the greatest part of the new patterns are manufactured solely for himself’. Further advertisements of 20 May 1809 concerned curing feathers; on 24 April 1813, a patent mangle; on 16 April 1814, enlargement of warerooms and stock of transparent blinds ‘on which are painted gentlemen's seats, parks or pleasure grounds’. On 12 and 19 November 1814 he announced his return from Paris ‘with a very great Variety of Beautiful Designs’; and on 28 September 1816 a sale of stock. Probably the John Dobson, u, named in the Strathmore papers on 23 December 1808 receiving £43 13s; and on 14 September 1810, £7 7s 7d.

Source: DEFM; Faulkner, ‘Some Windsor Chairs at Trinity House, Newcastle upon Tyne’, RegionalFurniture (1995).