Until very recently, I was only aware of a single armchair by William Cole, Philip Clissett's brother-in-law and fellow chairmaker in the village of Bosbury. But it seems that, all along, there was a similar chair in the Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum) in London.

The chair seems identical to the previously known one in all respects. While, at first sight, it appears identical to Philip Clissett's work, it differs in the form of the top part of the arm supports, and in the positions of the cross dowels in the lower part of the back - minor differences that show how closely these two chairmakers work is related. Of course, there is also the WC stamp to the top of the back legs, contrasting with Clissett's PC stamp.

WC-stamped chairs by William Cole are very rare, so I'd be pleased to hear about any of his chairs. Contact me here.

John Warrender (or Warander) was Philip Clissett's uncle, and made very similar chairs to Philip. He died in 1845, early in Philip's career, and there are relatively few of his chairs remaining. Like Philip's chairs, John's are stamped with his initials, IW.

Now, I can't really claim that the chair in the illustration is "new". It's news to me, but has been sitting in the Geffrye Museum (now known as The Museum of the Home) since 2005, and was part of Bill Cotton's collection. I simply didn't know it was there until today, when I was checking the museum collection online - a fairly new facility. In fact I found another relevant chair as well, but more about that later.

The chair is a standard Warrender side chair, apart from one feature - the front stretcher. Normally, chairs by Warrender have the double plain dowel front stretcher that we also commonly see in chairs by his nephew, Clissett, and his son-in-law William Cole. I know of just one example of a Clissett chair with a similar single pattern-turned stretcher, and a couple by Cole - all are the same, and of the same general form as this one by Warrender.

In fact, there are three identical Warrender chairs at the Geffrye. I shall try to see them if I'm ever in London again...