Squire Ashton & Sons; Henshall, W. & Sons 

Oldham, Lancashire; joiners, builders, timber & slate merchants (fl. 1880-1930)

The partnership of Squire Ashton, Herbert Ashton, Herbert Ashton, John Ashton, William James Ashton and William Henshall, trading as Squire Ashton & Sons, flaggers, slaters, joiners, builders, timber, stone & slate merchants and contractors of Cheapside and nr Werneth Station, Oldham was dissolved on 31 December 1886 (The London Gazette, 1 June 1886). The business was continued by William Henshall and became known as one of the makers of furniture designed by the architect, James Henry Sellers (1861-1954).  

Sellers was an associate of the architect, Edgar Wood, and he designed furniture for many wealthy, Manchester area industrialists. He described his style as ‘It is not a reproduction of old work, but a living Art in furniture which we require’. Regarding his choice of furniture maker he stated that ‘Personally, I have found that in making fine furniture the joiner is a better craftsman than the cabinetmaker. He is more thorough in his methods of construction. The cabinetmaker, clever though he undoubtedly is, relies too much upon artful dodges, and he is a past master of the art of camouflage’. 

Sellers was the designer of the interior of The Orchard, Bury, for Gordon H. Duxbury, and W. Henshall & Sons' invoices (showing the address of Barker Street, Oldham), with some furniture designs, from 1919-30, remain; invoice dated 19 January 1919 illus. FHS Newsletter August 2017, p.4. The commission included a fourteen-piece bedroom suite (price £1,791 16s), also three English walnut china cabinets with ebony beading (£590) fitted in August 1919. As used by Sellers from as early as 1904, the linings of the cabinet drawers was made of plywood made of mahogany. 

William Henshall (b.1849-d.1920) is recorded as a master builder with both his sons, William C. (aged 22) and Edward (aged 19) both working as builder’s assistant in the 1901 census.   

Sellers’ archive is at the Special Collections of Manchester Metropolitan University.  

Sources: Evans, ‘The Furniture of James Henry Sellers’, Furniture History (1970); Morley, ‘James Henry Sellers. Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, FHS Newsletter (August 2017).