Under Sir Ambrose Heal, the company introduced Arts and Craft style to mechanised furniture production, making it available to the middle classes.

196 in 1840,[8] the same year that John Harris Heal Junior, son of the founder of the same name, took charge of the company from his widowed mother, Fanny, who had run the firm after the death of her husband in 1833.

He embarked on a two-year apprenticeship with cabinet makers, Plucknett of Warwick, before spending a further six months with furniture retailer Graham and Biddle of Oxford Street.

Ashbee's Guild and School of Handicraft at Mile End Road, until Heal's established their own cabinet making factory in Albert Mews.

[3] Ambrose coined the motto When in doubt, innovate[16] and he commissioned imaginative retailing techniques, such as Gleeson White, the editor of The Studio, the arts and crafts magazine, writing a brochure with illustrations by C. H. B. Quennell called A note on simplicity of design in furniture for bedrooms with special reference to some recently produced by Messrs.

Ambrose commissioned his cousin and architect Cecil Claude Brewer in 1914 to design a new store on the central part of the site, which opened in 1917.

[6] Another feature of Brewers design was a spiral staircase that is still part of the store to this day, providing access across all the retail floors,[24][6] and the Mansard Gallery, which opened at the top of the building.

[4] Ambrose, who had been influenced by Scandinavian design after Heal's had received a commission from the Hotel Standard in Norrkopping,[26] and in 1923 was captivated by Orrefors display at the Goteburg Exhibition, which he soon introduced to English society.

[30][31] It was during the 1932 that Anthony Standerwick Heal, son of Ambrose, opened the company's new electrical department, having joined the firm in 1929 after serving an apprenticeship with Gordon Russell.

[4] During the same year, the architect Edward Maufe, whose wife Prudence worked for Heal's and was a lover of Ambrose, extended Brewer's frontage to 197-199 Tottenham Court Road, and added a Lenscrete vertical window, inspired by his design for Guildford Cathedral.

[3] After the war Heal's had a significant presence at the Britain Can Make It exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1946, commissioning designers like Alix Stone and pottery firm AE Gray & Co to produce pieces to be displayed.

[5] The company backed Clive Latimer and Robin Day's involvement in the 1948 International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where they won first prize for the sole storage unit.

[42] The Utility controls were dropped by the British government in 1952, and a year later Sir Ambrose retired, with Anthony replacing his father as chairman and J. Christopher as design director.

I quickly decided to buy some and hold a small exhibition of Michael's work in the Fabric Dept; so began a long lasting friendship.

'[45]After the Festival, Heal's greatly expanded their pottery offerings with designs by artists such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper[46] and selling Scandinavian glass by companies such as Holmegaard.

A year later, Heal's own cabinet making factory was moved from Tottenham Court Road to share premises in Islington.

[10] At the start of the decade, Heal's store had 21 departments which were organised into three different management groups - furniture, soft furnishings and domestic equipment.

[4] In the same year Anthony was awarded the Royal Society of Arts Bi-Centenary Medal to recognise the considerable influence you have exercised in many fields of design.

[3] In 1983, the Heal family decided to sell the business as they could not sustain the losses, and contacted Terence Conran, who although the boss of rival Habitat, they had a good relationship with.

[65] The cabinet making unit was closed in 1983,[4] with the bedding factory being moved out of Tottenham Court Road to Islington,[70] and Buzz ended as it clashed with Habitat's own ranges.

Managing director Colin Pilgrim announced plans to expand with new branches, with the first open on 1 December in King's Road, Chelsea, which had been designed by Virgile & Stone.

These included:[4] After World War II, Heal's Contracts moved into proving commissioned designs, furnishings and building work to a variety of customers.

[171][176][177] A year later Wyndham Lewis curated the Group X show, an attempt to revive the Vorticist movement, and include work by Jessica Dismorr, Frank Dibson, Frederick Etchells, Charles Ginner, Cuthbert Hamilton, Edward McKnight Kauffer, William Roberts, John Turnbull and Edward Wadsworth.

[171][178] The Bloomsbury Group were regular visitors as the Mansard Gallery quickly established itself as one of the meeting places for London's, if not Britain's, avant garde scene.

The Friday Group regularly put on shows at the Gallery, hosting their final exhibition in 1922, and it was the location where Aldous Huxley first meet Virginia Woolf.

[181] Other exhibits at the Gallery included Claud Lovat Fraser,[182] Fifteen Cornish Artists in 1951,[183] Markey Robinson,[184] Kathleen Caddick,[185] Ben Enwonwu[186] and the Junior Art Workers Guild.

[188][189] In the 60s, the Australian Alannah Coleman was appointed director of the Gallery and exhibitions were held by artists including Ron Russell and Bill Newcombe.

[194] The first exhibition by artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman entitled Neon Drama and Pearl Drops opened on the 15 February 2022.

[197] Dodie Smith, the celebrated author, famous for works such as The Hundred and One Dalmatians, joined Heal's in 1923 to run their toy department after her acting career failed.

[202][203] In 2016, to celebrate 100 years of Cecil Brewer's spiral staircase, Heal's commissioned ten designers (Orla Kiely, Ikuko Iwamoto, Donna Wilson, Louise Lockhart, Rachel Cave, Mia Sarosi, Cressida Bell, Sunny Todd, Squint and Zoe Bradley) to produce a modern interpretation of the famous cat.