J. Henry Sellers

James Henry Sellers[a] (1 November 1861 – 30 January 1954)[1] was a British architect and furniture designer who worked mainly in the north of England.

[1][2] He attended a local board school in Oldham, after the Sellers had moved to that town, and received no formal training in architecture or design.

[1] The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, in a 1942 article, includes Sellers (as well as Wood) in a selection of nine progressive English designers of the early 20th century.

[10] The architect and academic Andrew Crompton describes his work as "sophisticated and abstract", influenced by John Soane, and containing "some of the earliest expressions of Art Deco".

[11] In addition to residential projects, important joint works include two schools in Middleton, which are among the buildings highlighted by Pevsner in his 1942 article;[8] the architectural historian John H. G. Archer describes them as "remarkable in design, construction, and social provision" for that period.

[8] Also in Middleton is a terrace of three shops, which Historic England describe as "extraordinary in its use of the tiled panels", as well as for the flat roof in reinforced concrete.

[12] At Rose Hill, Huddersfield, the pair completed a partial interior redecoration, including supplying furniture and chimneypieces; Historic England compare the work with Josef Hoffmann's Stoclet Palace in Brussels (1905) and Adolf Loos's Kärntner Bar in Vienna (1907), describing it as "among the most adventurous in Europe" of its time.

[1] The best known is an office for Dronsfield Brothers in Oldham (1906–8), another of the buildings highlighted by Pevsner;[8] it is described by Archer as "masterly, classically simple"[1] and "show[ing] to the full the courage skill and sensibility of its architect".

[3] The approach he then developed was based on late-18th-century furniture, adapted to the contemporary construction methods and materials, as well as the requirements of consumers.

In a 1928 lecture he said that furniture designers should strive "to express the aims of our time, our own wants and feelings and thoughts" adding, "We should allow our imagination more play.

[14] Evans characterises Sellers' furniture as demonstrating a "'classic' simplicity" with "original" and "sensitive" details, and "sophisticated" design.

His clients were predominantly wealthy northern businessmen, and his furniture was offered at relatively expensive prices, such as £1,200 in 1932 for a bedroom suite comprising four items.