Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries
År: 1902
Forlag: Cassell and Company, Limited
Sted: London, Paris, New York & Melbourne
Sider: 384
UDK: 338(42) Bri
Illustrated from photographes, etc.
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154
SAWING LOGS FOR CHAIR LEGS.
A CHAIR-MAKING TOWN.
THE chair plays such an important part
in our modern social economy that
it is difficult for us to imagine a
•chairless state of society. Though Orientals
may be content to squat or recline upon the
ground, we feel that it would be impossible
to support the dignity of our Western
civilisation" without chairs. A throne, which
is but a glorified chair, is the symbol of
the most exalted rank ; to invite a man to
take the chair is to pay him a recognised
compliment, and to invest him, for the time
being, with almost despotic authority over
some section of his fellows ; while the offer
of a chair is one of the commonest forms
of conventional politeness.
There is one district in England where
the demand of the civilised world for chairs
is being met in a very effective manner,
and under conditions that are probably
unique. At High Wycombe, and in the
villages surrounding it, the one aim of the
population seems to be to produce chairs
in endless variety and almost unlimited
quantity. Amsterdam is said to be built
upon herring-bones, and with at least equal
truth High Wycombe may be said to be
built upon chairs.
For generations past the youth of this
part of Buckinghamshire have been brought
up as a matter of course to take some share
in converting the beech, ash, and elm trees
of their native woods into chairs, just as
the boys of a mining district almost inevit-
ably become miners.
Within recent years the industry has
increased enormously, stimulated by the
introduction of machinery and the impor-
tation of foreign timber. One result of this
growth is the curious one that the casual
visitor is likely to be less struck with the
extent of the trade than he was formerly.
In the earlier days of the industry nearly
every inhabitant of the town was a chair-
maker, and nearly every cottage was a work-
shop. The visitor walking through the town
on a summer clay would see through the
open door of each cottage the occupier at
work at his bench or lathe, while stacks of
chairs or parts of chairs stood around, and
the women, and often the children, sat at
the door caning or rushing the chair seats.