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Complete House Furnishers: The Retailer as Interior Designer in Nineteenth-Century London

This peer-reviewed research article considers the history of a particular moment in the development of the interior decoration/design business. Although the history of interior design practice has been charted, the business and professional history has been somewhat neglected, except for work on particular firms. The issues examined relate to four particular aspects. The first covers the distinctions between decorators, upholsterers, furnishers and architects and how these differences were reflected in the work undertaken. Secondly, is the nature of the customer base and how it reacted in response to changing social and economic factors. Thirdly, there are the issues of marketing and promotion, which were aimed at a much wider audience than architects would expect, and finally a consideration of the house furnisher as a foundation for the development of the professional interior decorator/designer.

To address these issues, the paper offers an overview of the rise, maturity and change of the house furnisher as the most important contributor to the supply of interior advice and products in the second half of the nineteenth century. By taking case studies of important players in the field, the paper considers why architects gave up their role as arbiters of taste in interior works, and how the house furnishing businesses took over. The research included consideration of contemporary journals, company records, and contemporary advice books as well as the related secondary literature. As a foundation for the subsequent development of a profession, the house furnisher laid a number of important ground rules. Apart from the issue of the control of work, they encouraged the development of specialised knowledge, and they recognised the importance of training and education, and to some extent, exercised control of access to the industry. The work is part of the author’s on-going commitment to the history and theory of interior design.