Martyr, George & Thomas

Greenwich, London; carpenters, joiner and model makers (fl. 1812-35)

Presumably the same as or successors to Richard Martyr & Co, employed by Sir John Soane from the 1790s. Named in Soane’s accounts for 12 & 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields from c.1812 onwards. Supplied model stands in 1815, 1830 and 1835; a mahogany stand for plaster figures 1830; repaired Soane’s model of the law courts 1828.

A great deal of their work was interior joinery – doors, window frames and shutters – and some carpentry. A bill for March and April of 1824 records making the ‘groined ceiling’ constructed in ‘2” deal’ and plaster, the pine ‘deal’ sash doors, ‘prep[aring] boards and fixing lamps’ for the floor to the Picture Room in Sir John Soane’s Museum. The quality of the work was all singled out for high praise in J. Britton and A. Pugin, Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London, 2 vols., 1825. (Illus. Dorey, Furniture History, (2008), figs. 75 and 76). In 1833 supplied the bookcases for the library on the ground floor of Buckingham Palace.

See Richard Martyr.

Source: Collard, ‘Soane and Furniture’, Furniture History (2008); Dorey ‘Catalogue of the Furniture in Sir John Soane's Museum’, Furniture History, (2008).