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Griew, I. & Co. (1904-1955)

Griew, I. & Co.

Hoxton, London; cabinet makers (fl.1904-c.1955)

Isaac Griew came to London from Vilna, Lithuania, in 1890. He became a woodcarver and by 1895 had set up business as a cabinetmaker with Jacob Schuman, a relative by marriage. The partnership was dissolved after two years and Schuman established his own business, Harry Schuman Ltd, which became successful in the 1930s, making and importing bedroom suites from Hungary. Griew then went into a partnership with Paul Joseph, which was also dissolved in 1904. The Cabinet Maker of March 1904 recorded that Isaac Griew and Paul Joseph had dissolved their partnership but production continued as I Griew & Co., with premises at 53-55 Hoxton Square, 1-2 Victoria Buildings and 8-14 Coronet Street, Hoxton. For a number of years Griew carried on his own account until joined by one of his sons and four of his nine sons-in-law. The factory was in Chatham Place, Hackney, until it moved to substantial premises at Waterden Road, Bow, in the late 1920s. Harris Lebetkin worked for him from 1905-10. The firm's workforce consisted of nearly all Jewish cabinet makers and the management communicated in Yiddish. Their main production was of bedroom and dining room suites and gate leg tables, often in Jacobean style. In the 1930s Griew established furniture & upholstery factories in both Sunderland & Glasgow to which pieces were sent from London and assembled. I. Griew established itself as a public company in the 1930s, but Isaac Griew died in 1936 and the Sunderland and Glasgow plants were closed by 1939. War work then Utility furniture production followed but the firm had ceased trading by the mid 1950s.

Source: Massil, Immigrant Furniture Workers in London 1881-1939 (1997); Massil, Immigrant Furniture Workers in London, 1881-1939.  A Supplement (2000).