I have been looking through some old catalogues online and came across the wonderfully named Colonel Mulliner’s Extraordinary Tray, which was for sale from Apter-Fredericks in New York in 2011.  It is a beautiful piece made from satinwood and tulipwood with a number of marquetry motifs including husks tied with ribbons.   The design matches a number of other pieces attributed to Ince & Mayhew including a pair of card tables and a Pembroke table from Ham House. 
   
Being curious about the name, I decided to find out more about Colonel Mulliner. In his later years he established an outstanding collection of English furniture, objects of art and tapestry, which was sold by Christie’s after his death in 1924, when his estate was worth around £250,000 (nearly £10 million today)[i]. The tray was in his collection, as well as a commode by Ince & Mayhew which is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York as part of the Untermyer Collection.   

However, as Mr H H Mulliner, Managing Director of the Coventry Ordnance Works, the Colonel played a part in the build up to World War One.  He took over the family’s coach-building business in 1887 and by 1897 they were making body parts for motor vehicles, including Rolls Royce and Bentley.    He was also interested in developing tools to make ordnance and became Managing Director of Coventry Ordnance Works owned by Cammell Laird in 1903.   In 1906 he wrote to the War Office to inform them that there was an “enormous expenditure going on at Krupp’s for the purpose of manufacturing very large naval guns and mountings quickly.”[ii] Krupp produced most of the artillery of the Imperial German Army.

Unfortunately that was not the case, and it can only be assumed he was trying to get business for his own company, which was struggling to find orders and by 1909 was lying idle. Mulliner wrote letters to The Times, visited politicians and succeeded in persuading Balfour that more Dreadnoughts had to be built.  The popular press supported the scare-mongering, (sound familiar?)  and eight vessels were eventually ordered.  Germany, who had no intention of producing the numbers of dreadnoughts mentioned, lost all trust in British diplomacy.  Philip Noel-Baker in his 1959 Nobel Prize lecture said: year by year, the race in Dreadnoughts led to panics and to counter-panics in Germany and Britain; by 1909 our foreign minister, Lord Grey said it had become the most important single factor in increasing European tension and the risk of war.[iii]

Mulliner was required to leave the Board of Directors of Cammell Laird, receiving a settlement of £100,000 in addition to the payment of £142,566 for shares on the merger of the businesses in 1903. 

He was in the Territorial Army and in 1914 he was an Honorary Colonel for the Remount Service, whose role was to provide horses for the cavalry.  He relinquished this appointment in October 1915.  According to the London Gazette he relinquished the appointment of Hon. Col. of the Royal Field Artillery, 4th S. Mid. Brigade on 18th November 1922, on completion of tenure, retaining his rank.

He developed his interest in antiques after the war and was an important early collector.  He left some items to the Victoria & Albert Museum, and also bought and modernised Rainham Hall, now belonging to the National Trust. 

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulliners_(Birmingham)

[i] Probate Record
[ii] Noel-Baker, Philip John, The Private Manufacture of Armaments. London, Gollancz 1936 p412-6
[iii] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1959/noel-baker-lecture.html

Two yew-wood tables by Ince & Mayhew have recently been advertised by Apter Fredericks in London.  Although slightly varying in design they both have a very distinctive frieze, which can also be seen on other items of Ince & Mayhew furniture.

The style is called a Vitruvian scroll and is like a running wave.  It was named after Vitruvius a Roman architect, engineer and author.  It was almost uncanny to see how closely the frieze on the dressing-table provided for the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace matched the ones on the two tables. It is also the same design as the frieze on a card table at Blenheim. The tables are saved to my Pinterest board – Furniture for Sale.

This Vitruvian scroll frieze also appears on a pair of Bookcases sold by Christie’s in 1993 for £111,500, which also have swags hanging from ribbon ties and large urns, both characteristic of Ince & Mayhew marquetry.   
  
It is this very close similarity that allows an expert to attribute an item of furniture to a particular maker with confidence.  The most satisfactory proof to my mind is a bill that specifies the item that was supplied, on a piece of paper with the firm’s heading!  Croome Court, and Linley Hall provide good examples in their archives.

Another very helpful indicator is an inventory that specifies an item supplied by the firm such as the 1792 inventory at Broadlands where Lady Palmerston noted the Secretary made by Ince (17)82.

Sometimes a person’s bank account will indicate that an amount was paid to Mr Ince, or Ince and Mayhew, or any of the other variations.  The 3rd Earl of Darnley’s account book gives the account name as William Ince from 1761-1780.[i]  He paid the firm a total of £3,798 18s 4d, and his son the 4th Earl paid them £3605 9s 3d.  This excludes the £962 18s for the 3rd Earl’s funeral. (Medway Archives: U0565) It is then a question of looking at items of furniture  that still exist  related to the account-holder's residence, in this case Cobham Hall, to see which have Ince & Mayhew characteristics.


[i] Ingle, Sarah William Ince Cabinet Maker His Life and Ancestry 2015 p.60

Ince & Mayhew were closely involved with the architect William Chambers in the replenishment of Blenheim Palace for the 4th Duke of Marlborough in the 1760s and 1770s up to 1789. Ince & Mayhew’s directory The Universal System, published in book form in 1762, was dedicated to the Duke.

Hugh Roberts has written about their work for Blenheim Palace in his article for the Furniture History Society ‘NICELY FITTED UP': FURNITURE FOR THE 4TH DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[i]  Apart from providing a great deal of furniture including the State Bed, some beautiful Commodes, chairs for the Hall, the Dining room and the Saloon, and a pair of mahogany steps for the Duke’s Observatory in 1785, the firm was also involved in decorating and refurbishment.  They provided items such as silk damask curtains and leather table covers, and they cleaned the tapestries.  They also provided bell glass lamps and a Triangle Mahogney Musick stand.

I was interested to read that they provided a number of mahogany doors for the palace in 1776-7 and again in 1787.  These doors all had a three-panelled design, some plain, some with fluted panels. The locks on some of the doors were stamped E. Gascoigne, and some of the hinges were stamped INVENTER. In 1787 these were provided by Mrs Gascoigne. The Stewards Day Book noted that on May 18 1787 Came from Mr Mayhews 3 pr. Mehogny doors ..4 Pair of Mehogny doors… from Mrs Gascoigns 2 Strong locks for Iron Doors; 7 mortice locks, 42 hinges, and furniture for 7 Pr. of door.

Writing in the Catalogue of Commodes[ii], Lucy Wood relates that the Gascoigne family worked from 37 Bury Street, Westminster, the address from a 1789 bill to Lord Monson from R. Gascoigne.  James Gascoigne paid the rates for this address for 1777-78 and 1784 to 1787.  Edward Gascoigne paid for 1780 to 1782 and Rachael Gascoigne paid from 1786 to 1795.  Edward was presumably the inventor of the high precision self-closing hinges. 
 
According to the Freemasonry Membership Records[iii], Edward was described as a lockmaker when he became a freemason in 1772.  He was buried in St James Piccadilly in 1785 and it may have been that he had met William Ince or John Mayhew through church, as both the Ince and Mayhew families had their children christened there. Alternatively they may have met through the freemasons.  Both William Ince and Edward Gascoigne were members of Lodges that met in New Bond Street in the 1770s, William of the Lodge of Felicity and Edward The Corner Stone Lodge.  Or the firms may have been employed independently.

 It is worth noting that the lockmaking business was continued by Racheal Gascoigne, who may have been the sister, daughter or widow of James or Edward, just as William Ince’s mother, Mary, continued the glass-making business when her husband, John, died in 1745: two examples of women business proprietors in eighteenth century London.


[i] Roberts, H. (1994). 'NICELY FITTED UP': FURNITURE FOR THE 4TH DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. Furniture History, 30, 117-149. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23407923

[ii] Wood, Lucy, Catalogue of Commodes 1994 London:HMSO p.184

[iii] Library and Museum of Freemasonry; London, England; Freemasonry Membership Registers; Description: Register of Members, London, vol I, Fols 1-597

A beautiful sycamore and marquetry serpentine commode has come up for sale which has only recently been attributed to Ince & Mayhew. 

Lucy Wood, the author of Catalogue of Commodes, has carried out a detailed study and has identified a number of Ince & Mayhew  characteristics.  For example the commode has an unusual frieze of sunflowers which is identical to a frieze on a pair of tables formerly at Mersham-le-Hatch in Kent and the marquetry of the medallions on the doors uses a three-dimensional ornament of a string of beads looped over and under the urn, which can be found on a dressing table from the Bute collection.  Overall there are nine other items of furniture linked to this commode by various marquetry motifs. 
 
Most of these pieces have been ascribed to Chippendale, as he was originally thought to be the maker of the Mersham-le-Hatch tables.  However, Lucy Wood has checked and there are no accounts for Mersham for 1773-78 for Chippendale.  She also reminds us that the furniture he supplied to Mersham was much more sober than the tables. (C. Gilbert, The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale (1978) Vol 1, p222)  Looking at the other linked items, she confidently attributes them all to Ince & Mayhew and suggests that stylistic comparisons support this claim.
 
Lucy Wood reports another unusual aspect in that expensive veneer has been put on faces that would not have been seen, eg on three sides of the stiles and the fourth side of the legs, as well as on the back face of the end panels which were only converted to doors later.
 
The top of the commode has wonderful marquetry which was presumably requested by the client and may give some clues as to his or her interests and profession.  There is a caduceus, which is a winged staff with two snakes entwined.  This was an ancient symbol of commerce and negotiation and is associated with Hermes.  It was also used as a symbol of printing, from the attributes of Hermes as Mercury the messenger.  There is a triangle with rings, an instrument which had recently been accepted into the eighteenth century orchestra and another implement.  If you would like to hazard a guess as to what it is, please do so, using a comment. These three items are interlinked with a chain of husks.  Either side of the top of the triangle lie a dragonfly and a scallop shell.  The latter is a symbol of a pilgrim to the Holy Land or one who has walked the Camino de Santiago.  The dragonfly may just represent an interest in nature.
 
Who was this person with so many different interests, and sufficiently wealthy to have this commode made for them?   Presumably a pilgrim who was engaged in commerce or printing and interested in music and nature, but their identity is likely to remain unknown.   
 
It is very pleasing to see Ince & Mayhew described by the antique dealer as one of the finest cabinet-makers of the mid-late eighteenth century and for items previously attributed to Chippendale to be attributed to them.

A GEORGE III FUSTIC, WENGE, MAHOGANY AND EBONISED COMMODE

I was very taken with this description of an Ince & Mayhew commode which in June 2008 was bought for the highest known price for the firm’s furniture at £679,650 in the Christie’s auction Simon Sainsbury The Creation of an English Arcadia.  It was made for  George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and 4th Earl of Nottingham for Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland.  From his account book George Finch appeared to use Ince & Mayhew as his main suppliers of furniture when first modernising his mansion.  He wrote to his mother in the winter of 1774 'I have got a number of things from Mayhew. I am sure the house will soon have a more furnished look' [i]  The commode was described by Christie’s as one of the firm's masterpieces of the 1770s, and later influenced the design of their work at houses such as Broadlands, Hampshire and Chevening, Kent. 

So what are fustic and wenge? They are not a comedy duo, nor a term like ‘bunburying’, but exotic woods.

Ince & Mayhew used a number of exotic woods in their veneers including East Indian satinwood, purplewood from northern South America, ebony from India and Ceylon, padouk from West Africa and Burma, kingwood and tulipwood from Brazil and rosewood from the East Indies. 

According to the Wood Database, Fustic is a medium to large tree, growing up to eighty foot tall.   A member of the mulberry family and found in tropical America from Mexico to Argentina, it produces a yellow dye.  The wood itself is a golden to bright yellow but darkens to a medium brown with time.  It is a hard, dense wood, so not easy to work. 

Wenge grows up to ninety foot tall in Central Africa (Zaire).  It can be difficult to work as it blunts tool edges. It also sands unevenly due to differences in density between light and dark areas and is very splintery.  The dust can cause severe allergic reactions damaging the central nervous system.  It is medium brown to black.  Both woods are reportedly very resistant to termites!

The use of woods such as these meant the furniture would have originally been brightly coloured when first displayed.  The expansion of British trade, such as the East India Company, and the exploration of new territories led to an enormous increase in the amount and variety of wood that was imported.  However, these were luxury woods and only the wealthy could afford them.


[i] C. Hussey, 'Burley-on-the-Hill', Country Life, 17 February 1923, p. 217

Following on from the card tables from Clytha Castle, I wondered what card-games were in vogue in the eighteenth century.   I found mention of Whist, Loo – which could cause spectacular ruin, Brag – a forerunner of Poker, Pope Joan - a mild and homely gambling game for all the family, especially that of clergymen, Reversis – an ancestor of Hearts and Speculation – a mild domestic gambling game mentioned by Jane Austen.  Edmond Hoyle wrote A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742; the twelfth edition contained  the new laws of ... whist, as played at White's and Saunders's chocolate houses[i].  In 1770 Mr. Hoyle’s Games was published containing Easy Rules for Playing the Games of Whist, Quadrille, Cribbage, Piquet, Chess, Backgammon.

The German cabinet-maker David Roentgen produced an ingenious games table (c.1780-83) which has different leaves for playing different games.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has produced an animation to show how it unfolded.

Ince & Mayhew produced three round Loo tables for the Prince of Wales at Carlton House in 1788-89[ii].  They were billed at £5, £9 and £9 9s and the most expensive had a central mahogany pool, five counterwells and a three branch adjustable light.  The third Lord Monson hired card tables and chairs from Ince & Mayhew presumably for a party at his home, Burton Hall in Lincolnshire.  Sir John Griffin Griffin Bt. paid for a neat Morroco Backgammon Table and Leather Boxes in 1774 at a cost of £2 for Audley End or his London residence 10 New Burlington Street.  At Goodnestone Park, Kent there were a pair of Ince & Mayhew yew-wood card tables with ebonized borders inlaid with engraved flowersprays bought by Sir Brook Bridges.  Sir Brook’s daughter, Elizabeth, married Edward Austen, the brother of Jane Austen.  Jane would visit them at Goodnestone and started writing Pride and Prejudice immediately after staying there in 1796[iii].  Did she perhaps play Speculation on an Ince & Mayhew card table?!


[i] British Library catalogue

[ii] Roberts, H and Cator, C. 1986. Mayhew, John and Ince, William. In Beard, G and Gilbert, C eds. Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 Leeds,London : Furniture History Society: W.S. Maney & Son Ltd, pp. 589-598.

[iii] http://www.goodnestoneparkgardens.co.uk/history-of-goodnestone.php

I was recently contacted about some Ince & Mayhew furniture from Clytha Castle, described by the National Trust as one of the outstanding 18th-century follies of Wales.  It stands on top of Clytha Hill, on the edge of an old grove of chestnuts, and is currently cared for by the Landmark Trust.
 
The Castle has rather romantic origins as it was built by William Jones as a memorial to his recently deceased wife, Elizabeth. The dedication, inscribed on a tablet set into the walls, reads as follows:

This Building was erected in the year 1790 by
WILLIAM JONES of Clytha Houfe Efq
Fourth Son of JOHN JONES
of Lanarth Court Monmouthfhire Efq and
Hufband of ELIZABETH the laft furviving Child
of Sir WILLIAM MORGAN of Tredegar KB
and GrandDaughter of the moft Noble WILLIAM
Second Duke of Devonfhire
It was undertaken for the purpose of relieving a mind
fincerely afflicted by the lofs of a moft excellent Wife
whofe Remains were depofited
in Lanarth Church Yard A.D: 1787
and to the Memory of whofe virtues
this Tablet is dedicated.

Though on a different scale, the castle has been likened to the Taj Mahal in its purpose. However a contemporary commentator also pointed out that Elizabeth, the grand-daughter of the Duke of Devonshire, had given her husband a huge fortune.

The castle was designed by William Jones himself, assisted by the architect John Davenport, who had earlier designed an orangery for Warren Hastings at Daylesford House – Warren Hastings was also a client of Ince & Mayhew.  William Jones kept a handwritten account book, recording all the costs of building and furnishing the castle, including craftsmen’s wages, transport costs and building materials.  From 1791-1792 he paid Ince & Mayhew £1000 for ‘Gothic style’ furniture for the house.

In 2013 Sotheby’s New York sold two games tables from Clytha Castle for $100,000, and now a mahogany dumb waiter, also by repute from Clytha Castle and attributed to Ince & Mayhew, will be on sale at the San Francisco Antiques Fair this October.

Did Ince & Mayhew supply any other furniture for William Jones?  If so, where is it? 

Francis Ince (1841-1920) one of William Ince’s great grandsons, played an important role in the introduction of electricity to the domestic home. 

According to his daughter’s book[i], Francis was a practical man of business, by temperament excitable, impetuous and impatient of quick results.  A lawyer by profession he was a passionate amateur scientist with a great interest in the technicalities of electrical science.  In 1881 he met Sebastian de Ferranti, then aged 17, but already an ingenious inventor, who was then working for Siemens.  Francis Ince recognised Ferranti’s talent and set him up in business with the company Ferranti, Thompson and Ince. 

Ferranti was a pioneer in electrical engineering, having grasped that electricity could be made on a large scale in one place and then distributed to all those who needed it.  One of his aims was to use electricity to help women with their domestic chores.  He was appointed to the London Electric Supply Corporation with Francis Ince on the Board of Directors.  At the age of 24 he helped establish the world’s first high voltage AC power station at Deptford with the ability to create 10,000 volts.  He also invented cables to carry high voltage electricity; the transformer to reduce the voltage for use and the voltmeter to measure use. This is much the same system that is still in use all over the world today.

By 1893 Francis Ince was a Member of the  Institution of Electrical Engineers, Director of the London Electric Supply Corporation and Chairman of S. Z. de Ferranti.  In 1889 he had been amongst the party to meet Thomas Edison when he visited the Deptford works.

Francis left Ferranti’s company in 1899, but they remained firm friends.  Ferranti had married his daughter, Gertrude, in 1888 and was a support to Francis during his final illness.

A blue plaque for Sebastian de Ferranti has recently been erected in his birthplace, Liverpool.  An excellent explanation of his contribution to our world can be seen at http://www.sebastiandeferranti.co.uk and http://www.ferranti.me/sebastian-1864.html  


[i] Ziani de Ferranti, Gertrude and Ince, Richard, The Life and Letters of Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, London 1934

In the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London there is an oil painting called  A Cabinet-Maker's Office.   It shows a cabinet-maker pointing to a coloured design for a commode and bookcase.  The desk in the background shows the order book and account books.  The figure to the right, holding a pen, is possibly the book-keeper.  The notes supplied by the V&A point out that only a substantial business would require a full-time book-keeper.  The painting would have been commissioned by a wealthy member of the new middle-class to show off the business he had built up. The design shown in the paper held by the cabinet-maker suggests a date of 1770.  The artist is unknown.

Interestingly at the Huntingdon Museum in California there are two portraits of children of John Mayhew: one of Isabella who was the daughter of his first wife, Isabella Stephenson, and one of James Gray at the age of ten.  James Gray Mayhew was the fourth son of John and Bridget and became an architect and a surveyor, working for the Westminster Fire Office.   He is the man who became the Receiver for Ince & Mayhew in 1824.  Both portraits were painted by Charles Ansell and are dated 1780. 

Looking at the faces of all three, is there any family resemblance?  Could the cabinet-maker in the V&A painting be John Mayhew?  He had commissioned the family portraits, and there may have originally been more paintings of his other children, which have since been lost.  Could he have commissioned a portrait of himself?

 The main argument against this is that Ince & Mayhew’s accounts were in such a mess when the partnership was dissolved, it is unlikely they employed a book-keeper. However, if you will forgive a flight of fancy, suppose the man on the left is John Mayhew and he is pointing to an alteration in the design that needs to be made by the man on the right holding a pen, that could be William Ince!

The Huntington Art Gallery, originally the Huntington residence, contains one of the most comprehensive collections in America of 18th and 19th century British and French art.  The collection can be viewed on their emuseum, and includes five watercolours by Joseph Murray Ince, grandson of William Ince.