Wallace, Wm & Co.

Curtain Road, London; cabinet makers, upholsterers and decorators (fl.1871-95)

Recorded at 151 & 153 Curtain Road in the 1871 Post Office Directory as upholsterers, chair and sofa makers; and as cabinet makers in The Furniture Gazette Directory, 1876 & 1877.  

William Wallace, cabinet maker of 101 & 158 Curtain Road (probably the same man) died on 17 July 1876 at 10 Albion Square, Dalston with the executors of his estate being his brother and his cousin. The estate was sworn at under £4,000 with bequests to the RNLI, the Caledonian Society, RSPCA, the Hospital of Chest and London Hospital with smaller amounts to local Shoreditch charities & institutions [The Furniture Gazette, 2 September 1876]. 

By 1895 William Wallace & Co.had expanded to no. 155 Curtain Road and were described as ‘Wholesale House Furnishers and Decorators’. The Furniture Gazette, 1 January 1886, showed their telegraphic address as ‘Pantographic, London’.  

The Furniture Gazette recorded the firm’s participation in various London exhibitions:

• Furniture Trades Exhibitions, Agricultural Hall, 1881-84 [13 August 1881, 13 May 1882, 31 March 1883 & 10 May 1884]
• International Inventions Exhibition: exhibited a Sheraton style bedroom suite made in African satinwood, inlaid in various colours [1 June 1885]
• The Architectural and Building Trades Exhibition, Agricultural Hall, 1887 [1 April 1887]
• Electrical Exhibition, Crystal Palace, Sydenham, 1892: designed and furnished a room [15 February 1892]

In 1885 they were awarded a contract to supply furniture and fittings of the offices of the new buildings of the Royal Colonial Institute in Northumberland Avenue [The Furniture Gazette, 1 August 1885].

The firm apparently produced lavish catalogues aimed at the public as well as selling to the trade. A page of their catalogue c.1880 showed designs for chests of drawers, work/dressing table, wash stand, dressing tables and mirror (illus. Kirkham, Mace, Porter (1987) p.64). They undertook complete furnishing schemes as well as making and supplying furniture. Customers included:

• The Dowager Duchess of Marlborough
• The Marquis of Tweedale
• Viscountess Molesworth

They evidently supplied large houses with bulk orders of everyday furniture, such as their ‘Indispensable Corner Wardrobe’, which featured in various advertisements and their catalogue of 1894. This wardrobe had a royal letters patent no. 12773. The lavish 1895 catalogue produced for marketing to private customers included the ‘High-class Inexpensive Drawing-Room Furniture’ range, Suite No. 7 available in Rosewood, inlaid with satin and other choice woods and ‘Designs for Artistic Inexpensive Bedroom Furniture’ range, Suite No. 7 in Basswood, stained green (both illus. Kirkham, Mace, Porter (1987), pp.46 & 63).

Sources: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978); Kirkham, Mace, Porter, Furnishing the World. The East London Furniture Trade 1830-1980 (1987).