Pistor, Thomas jnr

‘The Cabinet’, Ludgate Hill, London; joiner and cabinet maker (fl. 1673–d.1710)

Born in London in 1652, Thomas Pistor jnr. was the son of the cabinet maker, Thomas Pistor snr. and Elizabeth and the brother of William Pistor. Thomas jnr was made free of the Joiners' Company by patrimony on 1 July 1673; he was married to Dorothy Plaistowe in April 1674 in Hughenden, Buckinghamshire and their daughter, Elizabeth was baptised on 26 July 1675 on Ludgate Hill [The London Archives (TLA), Parish records].

In 1679 Thomas jnr was fined by the Joiners’ Company for employing two ‘forreigners’ (British tradesmen who were not freeman), thus contravening the laws of the City of London. Immigrants were commonly known as strangers or aliens [GL, Joiners' Company minutes]. 

Pistor's apprentices are difficult to differentiate from those of his father, but one for certain was William Teage (1701). The tax assessment for 1691/2 records three apprentices living in the Pistor family home on Ludgate Hill: Dermot Goodwin, John Perry and John Joiner, together with Pistor himself, his daughter, Elizabeth, and a maidservant (his wife must have died by this date). The house and workshop were probably substantial given the rateable value of £50 in 1695 [TNA, tax assessments].

He was appointed Renter Warden for the Joiners’ Company in 1692 and was a signatory to a petition presented by the Joiners’ Company to the City of London in 1694, in a complaint to parliament regarding freemen sawyers producing substandard goods. He was fined for refusing to serve a second term as Warden in 1704 [GL, Joiners' Company minutes].

In 1702 he insured a property in Bell Court - where his father also had properties - and in 1709 he insured his father’s former properties there, his father having died in 1706. He did not pay tax on these which suggests that he was not the occupant and still living on Ludgate Hill [TNA, Hand-in-hand insurance records].

Documented furniture by Thomas Pistor survives at Levens Hall, Cumbria, although whether by Pistor snr or jnr is uncertain. It was made for James Grahme, a courtier and friend of James, Duke of York (later James II), and was probably intended for Grahme’s London house or for Bagshot Lodge, which Grahme leased in 1685. The first bill is dated August 1684 to March 1686, the second 1687: 

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Detail of floral marquetry table top illustrated in A. Turpin, Furniture History (2000), p. 45. 

• A ‘… Large wall(nut) flowerd Looking glass & Tables and Stands flowered... 09 10 00’, delivered in April 1685, is likely to relate to a floral marquetry table still at Levens.
• One matching candlestand and a related mirror also survive.
• A pair of princewood and marquetry candlestands are probably those supplied in 1687: ‘ffor a Princewood Table and large glass of Princewood and Stands and Leather Covers… 9:00:00’. 

Other documented furniture includes:

• An oyster-veneered, princeswood scriptor, formerly in the collection of the Hon. Basil Ionides, inscribed in the interior ‘Mr. Thomas Pistor, Ludgate Hill, London’ (illus. Country Life, 11 August 1950, p. 44). The location of this piece is currently unknown, but a number of other princeswood scriptors and cabinets have been attributed to Pistor on the strength of visual similarities with it.
• A bill for furniture supplied to an unnamed patron on 16 November 1699 survives in a private collection. It lists a pair of sconces, an Indian tea table, and a frame and glass for a chimney piece, total £6 13s 6d.

Thomas Pistor's mother, Elizabeth, died aged sixty-nine and was buried in Sutton, Surrey on 7 January 1690 beside two of her children who died in the plague of 1665. His brother, William, died on 12 March 1691 and was buried beside her. Thomas Pistor jnr died on 22 October 1710 in the parish of St, Martin Ludgate, aged fifty-eight. His body was buried in the family grave on 27 October 1710. 

On 22 March 1711, the sale of his stock was advertised in The Spectator: 'At the Cabinett on Ludgate-hill still remains to be sold, at very low rates, the following goodes of Mr. Pistor lately deceas'd, being all to be disposed of by Lady-day next. Three fine Japan'd and 1 walnut Cabinetts, 1 fine walnut and 1 India Scrutore, 1 Wainscott Desk and Book-case on Drawers, 1 Japan'd tortoiseshel and 1 black Plate Case and 3 fine Princewood strong boxes, 1 fine inlaid Copper fram'd large Glass, Table and Stands; right India Japan'd large Glass, Table and Stands; r White Japan'd Glass and Table; . . . 1 Japan'd Chimney glass, some Japan'd swing Glasses several walnut Black and Japan'd Onamber Tables etc.'.

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Signature of Thomas Pistor jnr, The London Archives (TLA), Marriage Tax Assessment, Farringdon Ward Without, 1695, Assessment box 54.

Source: DEFM; A. Turpin, ‘Thomas Pistor, Father and Son, and Levens Hall’, Furniture History (2000), pp. 43-60;  L B. Luu, 'Migration and change: Religious refugees and the London economy, 1550-1600' in Critical Survey, Vol. 8, No. 1, Diverse communities (1996), pp. 93-102; Joiners’ Company Records; Cumberland Parish Records, Marriages (1912); London Metropolitan Archive (TLA), P69/Mtn1/A/002/Ms10213, Baptismal records; TLA, Assessment box 36/11; Bishopsgate Ward, fourth quarter, 1692; TLA, Assessment box 44/4. Window tax, Bishopsgate Without, 1696; Guildhall Library (GL), MS 8046/1-4, Joiners' Company minutes; TLA, Hand in hand MS vol. 2, refs 2995, 2996.