We have received a kind invitation from British & Irish Furniture Makers Online (in collaboration with the Furniture History Society). Members are invited to their Sunday online lecture:
‘Servants’ Furniture in the Georgian Country House by
Professor Jon Stobart
Sunday, 5th July 2020, 19.00 (BST)
Pamela in the Bedroom with Mrs Jewkes and Mr B. (1743–44), Joseph Highmore. Tate, London
Servants were a vital part of any large Georgian household and yet our image of them is largely confined to their work areas, such as, the kitchens and offices. Indeed, servants’ quarters have generally been overshadowed by the more opulent rooms of the household, their significance further undermined by the poor survival of servants’ furniture and reference material generally. On Sunday, Professor Jon Stobart will share his new research and cast some light on this neglected area. He will draw on a range of resources, including bills, inventories and catalogues, to reveal the changing nature of servants’ rooms and furniture in a selection of country houses. He will examine how their furniture discloses a hierarchy, distinguishing servants in terms of status and gender. Their furniture also reflects a growing emphasis on comfort and convenience. Although in most cases furniture makers’ names cannot be linked to specific pieces, Professor Stobart will examine the networks of supply which enabled the servants’ rooms to be furnished and share some information about their likely provenance, in some rather unexpected ways.
Jon Stobart is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is a social and economic historian of eighteenth-century England, with a particular interest in the history of retailing and consumption looking at the relationship between fashion, taste and second-hand circuits of exchange; challenging the traditional notion that second-hand markets were based on economic necessity. Much of Jon’s work is collaborative, interdisciplinary and international; he is the editor of Travel and the British Country House: Cultures, Critiques and Consumption in the Long Eighteenth Century (2017) and the co-editor of A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe: Display, Acquisition and Boundaries (Bloomsbury, 2017) and The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption (Historic England, 2015). He is also Founding Editor of the journal History of Retailing and Consumption And the Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900.
We are particularly delighted that Jon is delivering our first Sunday lecture as part of the outreach programme for the British and Irish Furniture Makers Online, the result of a collaboration between FHS and the Institute of Historical Research to extend and amplify the 1986 Dictionary of British Furniture Makers and create a research source for the future.
Zoom Link for the British and Irish Furniture Makers Online lecture SUNDAY
Topic: BIFMO LECTURE: Jon Stobart
Time: Jul 5, 2020 07:00 PM London
To join the session please contact bifmoprojectmanager@gmail.com to receive the link to the zoom session.
Attendees will be admitted from the waiting room from 18.45. Please make sure you are muted and your cameras are turned off. Please note that for security reasons we will lock the meeting at 19.20, so please make sure you have joined us by then.
The lecture will be followed by a round of Q&A. Please use the chat message box at the bottom of your Zoom window.
If you are using Zoom software, Zoom have increased their security and you may be required to install an update.
We hope to see many of you on Sunday, 5th July.’
Many thanks to BIFMO and the FHS for the kind invitation.