Sewell and Sewell (1876-1927)
Sewell and Sewell
Worship Street and London Wall, London; wholesale furniture makers (fl.1876-1927)
The firm was recorded in The Furniture Gazette Directory, 1876 & 1877. The firm expanded to 8 & 10 Worship Street in 1881 and then 8, 10 & 16 Worship Street by 1883, as recorded in its advertisements in The Furniture Gazette.
The Furniture Gazette, 22 April 1882, recorded that the firm made every type of furniture from ‘wall bracket to pianoforte’. The top floor of the premises in 1882 was devoted to drawing room suite frames and other goods of a middle class character, the third & lower floors had showrooms with a large display of walnut drawing room suite frames, hall stands, tables and dining room furniture in oak, walnut and mahogany. The second floor has bedroom suites in Adam, Chippendale and Early English styles, and office and library furniture. Upholstered furniture, drawing room and dining room suites were on display on the first floor. The ground floor showrooms housed sideboards, overmantels, dining tables, chiffoniers and French & Venetian glasses, with painted and japanned furniture in the basement.
The Furniture Gazette, 10 February 1883, described the new showrooms of the firm as organised with the expansion to 8, 10 & 16 Worship Street and The Furniture Gazette, 10 March 1883, illus. a Queen Anne style sideboard.
In 1885 the firm established a specialist upholstery warehouse, which was supervised by the ‘genial’ head of the firm, and The Furniture Gazette, 1 August 1885, illus. a 7ft by 10ft American walnut sideboard as well as recording Sewell & Sewell’s manufacture of the Beaconsfield bedroom suite made in walnut relieved in ash, a walnut cabinet and a full range of office furniture.
Sewell & Sewell exhibited drawing room and dining room furniture at the 2nd & 3rd Furniture Trades Exhibitions, Agricultural Hall, 1882 & 1883 [The Furniture Gazette, 13 May 1882 and 5 May 1883].
The Furniture Gazette, 23 December 1882, carried an advertisement for a furniture traveller on commission to work for the firm in London and the suburbs, also one for Scotland & Ireland.
The firm was described as wholesale cabinet makers at 8 Worship Street in The Furniture Gazette: Classified List of the Furniture, Upholstery, and Allied Trades, 1886.
The firm’s catalogue issued about 1905 had over 1000 pages of designs. A Flemish Renaissance-type table in one of their catalogues, c.1900, priced at £3 12s is illustrated Agius (1978), p. 41).
The Graham Gadd Archive (NMS) includes various receipts and bills for Sewell & Sewell dated 1897-1927. The documents until 1913 show the firm's address as 8, 10, 16, 19, 21 & 23 Worship Street and after the First World War at 8. 10, 12, 14 & 16 Worship Street. Invoice 1913 for a mahogany Sutherland table (price £1 9s 6d) and letter receipt 1927 are illustrated above.
The firm may have been connected with Key, Hoskins & Sewell as bedstead makers at 2 South Place, Finsbury, with warehouses at Welling Place, Liverpool Road, London, as recorded in the 1871 London Post Office Directory.
Sources: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978); Bennett, Shapland & Petter Ltd of Barnstaple, Arts & Crafts Furniture (2005); Graham Gadd Archive (NMS).
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