Waring & Gillow
[3] Gillow & Co. introduced both the Davenport desk and patented a telescopic dining table yet contemporary critics still called the company's furniture "solid, well made, but unadventurous".
He was succeeded by his son Samuel James Waring who rapidly expanded the business during the 1880s, furnishing hotels and public buildings throughout Europe.
The ticket shows that there had been music and entertainment during the evening as well as demonstrating the general grandeur of the affair, with separate entrances for guests using carriages.
[13] A contemporary newspaper stated that the impressive new premises covered 40,000 ft. and included a domed Georgian Rotunda (also mentioned on the reverse of the ticket) which measured 85 ft. by 54 ft.[14] This building would remain the company's headquarters for the next 65 years.
These included the interior fittings of HM Alberta (1901) after Queen Victoria's death, the royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert III, the interior of the Princesse Alice (1895) for Prince Albert of Monaco, the Lysistrata (1901) for James Gordon Bennett, the P&O liner, the Viceroy of India (1929), and the Queen Mary (1936).
Like other prestigious furniture retailers of the Victorian era, Waring & Gillow also secured furnishing contracts for a number of new luxury hotels that were being constructed in the capital.
They also established a large tent-manufacturing facility of 8,000 workers on the now closed former exhibition site at White City (the former Machinery Hall), London.
[20] From a manufacturing base in Cambridge Row workers made tents, gas masks for horses and aircraft wings.
[21][22][23][24] Towards the end of the 1920s Waring & Gillow opened a new, experimental modern art department and enlisted Russian designer Serge Chermayeff as director.
The first liquidation meeting occurred in 1932 and the company was restructured as Waring & Gillow (1932) Ltd.[26]During the Second World War the factory in Cambridge Grove, Hammersmith, produced parts for gliders and the Mosquito aircraft, while kit-bags, tents and camouflage nets were made by the upholstery department.
