Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BRITAIN AT WORK. 266 general survey of the indus- try, must by no means be over- looked. This may be de- scribed as the artistic, as opposed to the scientific, school of prod u c- , r ,,, tion. In- Photo : Cassell dr Co., Ltd. CABINET-MAKING—INLAYING- Stead of (MR. j. s. henry’s works). having a few stock patterns and reproducing them by machinery again and again in enormous quantities, the artistic maker will employ one or—if his business be a large one—several clever de- signers continually producing fresh designs, and these will be carried out almost entirely by handwork by some of the most skilful handicraftsmen that good wages can procure. Several of the retail tradesmen make a certain amount of this high-class artistic furniture, and there are a few wholesale firms who devote their entire attention to it. Of these latter we may take Mr. J. S. Henry, of Old Street, E.C., as a leading example. A visit to his workshops is an experience very different from a visit to a great steam factory, such as we have just described. A couple of rooms on the third floor in a side street in the neighbourhood of Curtain Road, where about a score of cabinet-makers and two or three polishers and inlayers are at work: this is one of several workshops in which—small and unimposing though they are—the most beautiful furniture is being turned out, furniture which is a credit to British workmanship, and is destined to adorn the houses of some of the most tasteful and artistic people in the land. The methods adopted in Mr. Henry’s work- shops are in diametrical opposition to those of the steam factories. The plan is for one man, or possibly two, to carry out a job in its entirety, from the rough timber to the inlay- ing and polishing stage. These last processes, of course, are special trades, but as far as the constructional work is concerned, the same workman will do it all. He receives from the drawing office a set of full-sized working drawings, and a sketch showing the appear- ance of the piece when completed, and with these as guides he proceeds to cut his wood to the required sizes, shape the parts and put them together, working at the bench with hand tools. Only for cutting out the very roughest of the work and for making mould- ings is machinery employed. Working on these lines, the workman has something of the artist’s satisfaction in watching the gradual development under his hands of a worthy outcome of his skill and labour, and the piece when completed has the additional value which, in the eyes of connoisseurs, belongs to skilful and conscientious crafts- manship as well as to appropriate and beauti- ful design. The workman whose experience has been confined to “ feeding ” a moulding or planing machine in a steam factory would find him- self quite at sea if presented with a set of working drawings and asked to carry out the work in the manner adopted in Mr. Henry’s workshops and others of the same kind. Although both classes of workmen engaged in the same doing the same work, work and the qualifi- cations required for it are widely different. It must not be for- gotten that though furniture making a great utilitarian industry, it is also an artistic craft; it is that fact which has prevented, and doubt- less will continue to prevent, the artistic are trade and nominally the conditions of their Photo: Cassell & Co., Ltd. WOOD-CARVING BY HAND (MR. J. S. HENRY’S WORKS).