Roodhouse and Sons (1875-1884)
Roodhouse and Sons
Cookridge Street, Leeds, Yorkshire; furniture manufacturers (fl.c.1875-84)
According to The Furniture Gazette in 1875 the showrooms of Roodhouse & Sons were amongst the ‘largest & most handsome’ in England. The firm obtained designs from Dr Christopher Dresser and other leading designers, and furniture was made in a broad variety of woods leading to pieces of remarkable quality. Upholstery fabrics were bought in from leading Halifax & Bradford manufacturers [The Furniture Gazette, 10 July 1875].
Roodhouse & Sons were listed in The Furniture Gazette Directory, 1876 & 1877. The Furniture Gazette, 24 May 1879, recorded Roodhouse as furnishing a specimen room at the Yorkshire Exhibition, 1879 and exhibited a mantel and overmantel at the Yorkshire Fine Arts Show, Leeds, March 1881. These were in English brown oak, relieved with bevelled mirrors, richly carved pear tree panels and ebony mouldings. Also a bedroom suite in American walnut, purple wood, ebony and satinwood [The Furniture Gazette, 5 March 1881].
In late 1882 the partnership of Messrs Charles Robert Pinchin and Charles Milner Roodhouse, trading as Roodhouse & Sons, was dissolved with Charles Roodhouse continuing on his own account under the ‘old style’ [The Furniture Gazette, 9 December 1882].
In 1883 the firm were one of the suppliers of furniture for the new Leeds Public Library; they were makers of the bookcases in the main area of the reference library and the pay office desks [The Furniture Gazette, 7 July 1883 & 26 April 1884].
Source: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978).