He joined with a family of traders called Sattersthwaite and sailed with them to the West Indies as a ships carpenter.
During the 1730s, he began to exploit the lucrative West Indies trade exporting mahogany furniture and importing rum and sugar, in addition to fitting out ships cabins and doing finishing work in construction.
The firm rapidly established a reputation for supplying high quality furniture and furnishings to the richest families in the country.
[2] Richard Gillow was the architect for the Custom House, Lancaster, and he is credited with originating the telescopic dining-table.
During the final years of the nineteenth century, the company ran into financial difficulty and from 1897 began a loose financial arrangement with Waring of Liverpool, an arrangement legally ratified by the establishment of Waring & Gillow in 1903.