Lascelles, W.H. (1870-1882)
Lascelles, W.H.
London; builder, joiner and furniture maker (fl.c.1870-82)
The primary trade of W. H. Lascelles (1832-1885) was builder, recorded with offices in City of London, 1880-85. He worked with the architect, Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) on several London houses and Hopedene, Surrey (1873-75).
The collaboration extended to furniture, which was designed by Shaw and made by Lascelles. Known surviving furniture includes three beds, c. 1875, part of the Owl Suite at Cragside (National Trust), probably made by Lascelles. Shaw and Lascelles displayed another bed with owl finials in 1877 in an annexe to the 1862 Exhibition Building run jointly with the Royal School of Art Needlework.
Of Shaw's design and Lascelles' execution, there is also a series of painted cabinets; one of which, dated 1877-82, painted green or black with gilt gesso decorated panels by J. Aldam Heaton, was sold at Bonhams, 5 December 2023, lot 88. This is similar to a cabinet in red/brown with different leafy panels recorded as designed by Shaw, made by Lascelles and decorated by Heaton (illus. Cooper, pp.120 & 121, no. 288) and an identical cabinet, stained green, which Lascelles exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle, 1878. Another cabinet was shown at the Furniture Exhibition, 1882, drawing illus. Aslin, p. 77.
In 1870 Lascelles registered his first patent, ‘an improved construction of Office Table’ where articles stored within the frame could be brought to hand without disturbing the writer and he later became a pioneer in the use of concrete in buildings.
Sources: Aslin, The Aesthetic Movement – Prelude to Art Nouveau, London (1981); Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors - From Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, Thames & Hudson (1987); Gere & Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design. From Pugin to Mackintosh (1993).
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