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Foster & Son; Foster & Cooper; Foster Cooper & Foster (1870-1911)

Foster & Son; Foster & Cooper; Foster, Cooper & Foster

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire; cabinet makers and art furniture manufacturers, designers, upholsterers and merchants (fl. c.1870-1911)

Foster & Son (a partnership between William Foster snr and jnr) was dissolved in 1877 and Foster jnr subsequently went into partnership with Mr Cooper [The Furniture Gazette, 17 February 1877].  

Extensive new premises on the outskirts of Nottingham were designed by a local architect, H. C. Sulley, and fitted out with new machinery including Armstrong’s patented dovetailing machine, with a yard was large enough to store enough timber for up to two years. The showroom was an ‘artistic piece of workmanship’, displaying high class & artistic furniture; illus. a suite of walnut furniture with black & gold ornamentation [The Furniture Gazette, 7 July 1877].

Foster & Cooper were listed 64 Long Row West and 79 Parliament Street, Nottingham in The Furniture Gazette Directory, 1877.

A dispute arose between the firm and the local cabinet making society and was amicably resolved in 1881. In October 1882 they displayed various mantelpieces suitable for a drawing or dining room at the Manchester Fine Art & Industrial Exhibition, illus. [The Furniture Gazette, 18 November 1882]. In 1884 they furnished rooms added to the George IV Hotel, Nottingham and were awarded the contract to supply the furniture for the board room at the Burton-on-Trent New Union Workhouse [The Furniture Gazette, 29 November 1884]. 

Foster & Cooper were listed in The Furniture Gazette: Classified List of the Furniture, Upholstery, and Allied Trades (1886) and The Furniture Gazette, 1 January 1888, recorded the firm as supplying office and board room furniture for the Worthing Local Board. A convertible inglenook, designed by Arthur Marshall, A.R.I.B.A., and made by Foster & Cooper, illus. [The Furniture Gazette, 1 April 1889]. 

Cabinet Maker & Art Furnisher, March 1893, announced that W. H. Foster, son of Mr. Foster, had trained as an architect, served the firm for six years and was now a partner; the firm being renamed Foster, Cooper & Foster. The article illustrated an inglenook fireplace designed by Maurice B. Foster. 

The Graham Gadd Archive (NMS) includes two bills for Foster, Cooper & Foster, dated 1901 (above) and 1911. These record the firm as cabinet makers, upholsterers, carpet warehousemen, ecclesiastical furnishers and removal contractors with the addresses of showrooms and offices at 63 & 64 Long Row West and 77 & 79 Parliament Street and steam cabinet factory at Kirkby Street, Nottingham.