Hasert, Peter, snr & jnr

Long Acre and Great Queen Street, Lincoln Inn Fields, London; cabinet and looking glass makers (fl. 1692-1750)

There were two furniture makers called Peter Hasert, father and son. In June 1692 Hasert snr (sometimes spelled Hazard), was fined as a Papist for refusing the oath of fidelity. He was then working as a cabinet maker in Long Acre. He was a neighbour and perhaps colleague of Gerrit Jensen and named as ‘loving friend’ and executor in Jensen’s will in 1715. By 1694 he had moved to St Giles in the Fields. 

On 10 November 1694, Peter Hasert jnr was apprenticed to Samuel Law, a London Blacksmith and cabinet maker by trade; made free by servitude in March 1701/2. 

Image

Copyright (Attribution/Credit)

TLA

NB: In the absence of a distinction between father and son in documentary references (i.e. guild records, taxes, apprentices bindings, parish records, street listings), it is impossible to determine whether the Haserts worked in partnership, at the same location, or which individual to attribute the following details.     

Hasert was resident at the 'Hen & Chickens' in Great Queen Street by 1720, the premises previously occupied by a cabinet maker named Davis in 1710.

Known apprentices:

• 27 April 1713: John Howard son of John Howard late of St. Martin in the Fields, Porter.
• 12 June 1716: Thomas Sly son of Thomas Sly, Sadler
• 30 December 1724: Richard Cave son of Richard Cave of Hammersmith.

Insurance

On 31 August 1724, Hasert (described as cabinet and looking-glass maker), insured his goods and merchandise for £200. On 31 October 1724, his goods, merchandise and dwelling house were insured for £800.

Commissions: 

• Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire and Dover Street, London (Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford and Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford): In 1720 Hasert was working for Harley at his London library in Dover Street and continued working for Edward Harley until at least 1725. In early 1720, Robert Harley had employed a cabinet maker named Bridgewater. Hasert's work, as recorded by Harley's librarian, Humfrey Wanley, involved maintenance, the making of pedestals for statues, book-presses, drawers for coins, and the packing of books for transport. Wanley also reveals that in 1724 Hasert gave as an excuse for delay that ‘one of his Men is gone beyond the seas’. In July 1722, Wanley received the upholsterer Humfrey Skelton, who wished to inspect the disposition of the presses at Dover Street on behalf of Robert Myddleton of Chirk Castle, who was planning to build a library there, and in April 1723 he was visited by Ellis Roberts, the joiner, who came to inspect some of the book presses, having been commissioned to make some more for the Earl of Oxford; on both occasions works by Hasert may have served as potential models.
• Tredegar House, Duffryn, Wales (Sir William Monson and Lord Monson), 1726–1729: Two payments made, ‘Cabinet Maker £79.0.0'; and 'Mr Hasert the cabinet maker £4.14.6’.
• Helmington Hall, Cambridgeshire(4th Earl of Dysart), September 1733:a ‘large mahogany library table’, the top covered with green cloth; and in 1735 forLady Fortescue.
• Langleys, Essex (Rebecca Tufnell), 1722 and 1725: account book entries, the first 19s for ‘Mounting a Screen’, the second is for ‘Japaning a Tea Table Black’.
• Burton Hall, Lincolnshire (Sir William Monson, Bt, and John, 1st Baron Monson), 1727–29: Bills. One bill dated 24 July 1727, headed ‘Work done for the Honble. Sr Willm Monson’, who died in 1726/27, for ‘Makeing a dineing table of your own mahogany’, etc., £1 18s 6d, receipted 1728. One bill dated 1729 to Lord Monson ‘For a mahogany table on a pillow & claw the top 24 inches overturned £1.10.0’.
• Sawston Hall, Cambridgeshire (Lady Fortescue),1735–36:  Bill to ‘the Honble Lady Fortescue’ (Mary, daughter of Richard Huddleston’, total £13 6s, including (February 1735/36) a mahogany corner table, a large mahogany voyder, a dressing glass in a walnut frame (May 1736) ‘A Sconce in a tabernacle frame carved and gilt … with a pair of brass branches’.
• Firle Place, East Sussex(Mary Sherbourne, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk), 1730s: Paid £770 19s for cabinet work.

Death and closure

Hasert snr died in early July 1746 in Paris, ‘on his intended journey for Italy’, described as ‘a very eminent Cabinet Maker near Lincoln's Inn Fields’. Hasert jnr announced the sale of the business in the early spring of 1751 when he ‘left off trade'. 

Image

Sources: DEFM; Collard, ‘A Design for Library Steps by Henry Keene’, Furniture History (1990); Bowett and Lindey ‘Looking for Gerrit Jensen’, Furniture History (2017); Dodd, Dudley, 'A Brush With The Goddess; 'Fox or Hound' Tables by William Kent', Furniture History (2024), p. 80; The London Archive (TLA),  Freedoms Admissions: COL/CHD/FR/02/0173-0178;  TLA, Sun Insurance, MS vol. 13; Hardy, W. J., Middlesex County Records - Calendar of the Sessions Books, 1689 – 1709 (London, 1905); The National Archives (TNA), Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books, 1713, 1716, 1724; (TLA), Church of England Parish Registers, 8 May 1716; Guildhall Library (GL), London Poll Books, 1727 & 1750.