Priest, W

London; auctioneer, appraiser and upholder (fl. 1837–40)

A maker whose name is well-known from the large number of items surviving stamped with his name and address or affixed trade label. The business was trading at 23 Gt Charlotte St, and 17 and 24 Water St, Blackfriars, 1837–39. The Water St address is recorded on some furniture, but labels and stamps bearing the address 1 and 2 Tudor St, Blackfriars are not infrequently found. The date of the furniture so marked ranges from c.1790 to the mid-Victorian period. The labels bearing the Tudor St address describe the business as a ‘Furniture Warehouse’ and it is probable that Priest was selling second-hand items which he marked before disposal. Stamped examples are illustrated in Gilbert (1996), figs 742-754. They show that, as his label suggests, he specialised in office and library furnishings but he also retailed ordinary domestic furnishings. The Soane museum has a mahogany desk probably purchased by George Bailey, first curator of the Soane Museum, bearing Priests’s label and giving the Water Street addresses (illus. Dorey, Furniture History (2008), fig 115.

Source: DEFM; Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840 (1996); Dorey, ‘Post-Soane Furniture’, Furniture History (2008).