SOME DOCUMENTED MAKERS AND RETAILERS OF BRITISH TEA CHESTS, CADDIES, TEAPOYS AND OTHER TEA STORAGE CONTAINERS

This list of makers and retailers of tea chests, caddies, teapoys and other tea storage containers contains only names that have come to the attention of the authors while carrying out research for this book. There must have been many other manufacturers and shop owners whose names have not yet come to light, especially those who did not label their work or those for whom tea containers did not feature largely in their repertoire. The list records names associated with mostly wood-based chests and caddies, but also takes account of those relating to japanned metal, papier mâché and pewter examples; names linked to silver, glass, ceramic or enamel tea containers are largely excluded. Only makers and retailers based in the United Kingdom and Ireland are represented. The dates provided for them are based only on information found to date, so many of the firms listed may have been in production for longer than indicated here. Occasionally, an approximate date has been attributed by assessing the likely age of an item on stylistic grounds.  

It should be noted that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between makers and retailers, and the entries are therefore listed alphabetically, not according to role. In the eighteenth century, cabinetmakers and upholsterers often acted as general house furnishers, and supplemented their own products with a range of ready-made items bought-in from elsewhere. Similarly, in the nineteenth century, retailers of ‘fancy goods’ often stocked articles made by others in a wide range of materials alongside the tea chests, caddies and other boxes that were produced in the firm’s own manufactory. Other manufacturers and retailers who sold tea chests and caddies include titles that seem unlikely in this context – ironmongers and stone importers to name just a couple. A distinction between them is sometimes hard to identify. For a full explanation, see Chapter 3: Making, Merchandising and Pricing. 

Information for this list has been drawn from a number of sources. One of the most useful has been a sizeable number of trade directories, especially those for London and Birmingham, cities which were centres for the production of fancy goods. Since Kent’s first volume for London appeared in 1734, these publications have documented makers and retailers by category of goods produced and/or by address. During the nineteenth century, many of the makers and retailers listed also took out advertisements in the directories, usually describing the categories of goods that they offered for sale.  

Trade cards, and occasionally broadsheets, which were handed out as advertising in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, have also been helpful, particularly those which include illustrations of tea chests or caddies. Large numbers of trade cards can be seen in the Heal and Banks collections in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum in London, in the John Johnson Collection in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, and in the collection of the Bishopsgate Institute, also in London. A selection of trade cards specifically relating to cabinetmaking can be found in Ambrose Heal’s The London Furniture Makers 1660-1840, which was published by Batsford in London in 1953 (referenced in the list below as Heal). 

Invoices and receipts for tea chests and caddies written on printed billheads occasionally occur in the archives of great houses. While some are still stored among private family papers, others are available to see in institutions such as The National Archive in Kew, and in public libraries. Records of some cabinetmaking firms are also available for study. The very informative archives of the famous and long-lasting firm of Gillow of Lancaster, for instance, are kept at Westminster Public Library in London. 

Catalogues of past auction sales have also yielded interesting information, especially those including the large collections of tea chests and caddies belonging to the late Calvert Wardley (Phillips, London, November 1984) and the late Robert Harman (Sotheby’s, London, November 1999).  

Some of the most appealing, and certainly the most direct, indications of the maker or retailer of a piece are the printed paper labels and impressions that occasionally occur on them. Makers’ labels may be glued to a piece in a variety of locations, but are situated most frequently on the base of an item or, in the case of chests, at the bottom of an interior compartment or in the well for the sugar bowl. In the nineteenth century, paper labels were largely supplanted by impressed lettering. Sometimes, as in the case of papier mâché articles, for example, the name was imprinted into the fabric of the piece, but more often the lettering was stamped on a strip of brass, ivory or ivorine that was attached to the inner rim of an item.  

Much supporting information for the following list has been gleaned from the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, edited by Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert and first published in 1986 by W. & S. Maney and Son in Leeds in association with the Furniture History Society. With sponsorship from the Society, this excellent biographical list of craftsmen involved in the furniture trade (referenced in the list below as DEFM) has more recently been made available online: it can be accessed for free directly via the book title, or via the British History Online website.