Phill, Thomas

‘The Three Golden Chairs’, Strand, London; upholder (fl. 1700–d. 1728)

Made free of the Upholders’ Company on  23 September 1700. He bound as apprentice, Thomas Collins of St Ives, Cambridgeshire on 2 June 1709, made free on 4 November 1719. He was in a  partnership with Jeremiah Fletcher, 1713–18. 

Thomas Phill died at the end of 1727 and his will was probated on 12 January 1727/28. [TNA, PROB 11/619].

On 24 May an auction sale of his household goods and stock in trade was announced at ‘The Fountain Tavern’, near the Exeter Exchange in the Strand. Phill was described as ‘upholsterer to Her late Majesty Queen Anne, to His late Majesty George I and to his present Majesty’. His extensive involvement as a supplier to the Crown is confirmed from archival sources. 

Royal commissions: 

• Windsor Castle, 1713–14. Provided cases and curtains for furniture and a state bed and in 1716 upholstered and provided bedding for a large state bed made by Richard Roberts.
• St. James’s Palace, 1715-16. Extensively involved in the refurnishing for George I.
• House of Lords, 1718. Supplied 90 Turkey work chairs, four table carpets and two leather folding stools
• House of Commons, 1718. Supplied 48 Turkey work chairs. Such extensive commissions resulted in large payments which in one quarter of 1719 peaked at £1,233. 
• Houses of Parliament, 1722. Further furniture of a similar nature was supplied.
• Westminster Abbey. 1727. Upholstered the footstool in preparation for the Coronation of George II and made a cushion for the Coronation Chair. 

Other commissions: 

• Church of St Mary-le-Strand, 1724. Recorded in connection with the furnishing promoted by the Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches in London and Westminster. 
• Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, June 1711 - February 1714. Employed by Edward Dryden. The only new furniture was supplied on 22 January and 12 February 1714 and consisted of a ‘walnuttree Arm'd Chair frame… cover'd with black Spanish Leather and Garnished with laqued pillor nailes’ and ‘6 wallnuttree back chaires frames of ye newest fashion stufft up in Lynnen & ye seats coverd a 2nd time’. The ‘Arm'd Chaire’ was charged at £2 15s and the ‘back chaires’ at £7 10s with an additional charge for fitting them with needlework covers. This upholstery suite which was sold in the 1930s to meet death duties has now been reacquired by the National Trust and restored to the house.

Source: DEFM; Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘A Set of Furniture by Thomas Phill at Canons Ashby’, Furniture History (1985); Rufus Bird, ‘The Furniture and Furnishing of St James's Palace’, Furniture History (2014).