Having apprenticed for Gillow of Lancaster George Hepplewhite conducted business in the parish of Saint Giles, Cripplegate and although there are no known examples of furniture made by Hepplewhite or his firm, there is little doubt to the significance of his designs and their affect on the furniture industry of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many (including George Hepplewhite himself) would contend that his prominence was somewhat attributed to an inevitable natural progression in architectural styles. He was in the right place at the right time. It is hard to argue that the designs found in his book "The Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer's Guide" of 1794 were not monumental in the shaping and influencing of the Georgian, Regency, Empire and (to some extent) the Victorian styles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
The most poignant description of George Hepplewhite's efforts can be found in the preface of his book:
"To unite elegance and utility, and blend the useful with the agreeable, has ever been considered a difficult , but an honourable task. How far we have succeeded in the following work it becomes us not to say, but rather to leave it,with all due defference, to the determination of the Public at large.
It may be allowable to say, we have exerted our utmost endeavours to produce a work which shall be useful to the mechanic, and serviceable to the gentleman. With this view, after having fixed upon such articles as were necessary to a complete suit of furniture, our judgement was called forth in selecting such patterns as were most likely to be of general use - in choosing such points of view as would show them distinctly - and in exhibiting such fashions as were necessary to answer the end proposed, and convey a just idea of English taste in furniture for houses.
English taste and workmanship have, of late years, been much sought for by surrounding nations; and the mutibility of all things, but more especially of fashions, has rendered the labours of our predecessors in this line of little use: nay, at this day, they can only tend to mislead those foreigners, who seek a knowledge of English taste in the various articles of household furniture.
The same reason, in favour of this work, will apply also to many of our own Countrymen and Artisans, whose distance from the metropolis makes even an imperfect knowledge of its improvements acquired with much trouble and expense. Our labours will, we hope, tend to remove this difficulty; and as our idea of the useful was such articles as are generally serviceable in genteel life, we flatter ourselves the labour and pains we have bestowed on this work will not be considered as time uselessly spent.
To Residents of London, though our drawings are all new, yet, as we designedly followed the latest or most prevailing fashion only, purposely omitting such articles, whose reccomendation was merely novelty, and perhaps a violation of all established rule, the production of whim at the instance of caprice, whose appetite must ever suffer disappointment if any familiar thing had been previously thought of; we say, having regularly avoided those fancies, and steadily adhered to such articles only as are of general use and service, one principal hope for favour and encouragement will be, in having combined near three hundred different patterns for furniture in so small a space, and at so small a price. In this instance we hope for reward; and though we lay no claims to extraordinary merit in our designs, we flatter ourselves they will be found serviceable to young workmen in general , and occasionally to more experienced ones."
A modest and humble designer...How rare is that?
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