H. Blairman & Sons Ltd

Designed by A.W.N. Pugin (1812-52)

The manufacture attributed to Edward Hull (fl. 1834-circa 1847), and earlier

Rosewood, with original stamped leather top

76 x 150 cm (diameter)

English (London), circa 1834

Possibly ‘Hamilton’; […]; Rendell’s, Ashburton, 1984; H. Blairman & Sons; John Scott (1935-2020); the Executors of John Scott

A.W.N. Pugin, Gothic Furniture, pl. 12 (London: Ackermann & Co., 1835), for an ‘Octagon table’ with the same base

Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design: From Pugin to Mackintosh (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1993), pl. 15

Paul Atterbury and Clive Wainwright (eds), Pugin: A Gothic Passion (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 132-33, pl. 235

In 1984, when the present table appeared on the market, it was suggested by both Clive Wainwright and Alexandra Wedgwood that the quality of the execution and detail were so good that the table had to have been made under Pugin’s supervision, rather than being based on the design published in Gothic Furniture (1835).

Lady Wedgwood proposed a date of 1834-35 and suggested Edward Hull as the maker. There are several references to the cabinetmaker Hull in Pugin’s diaries for 1835, and also to a Mr Hamilton, including for a table.  Wedgwood deduced that Hamilton might have been the patron for the present table.

For Edward Hull, see Mark Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers (Leeds: Regional Furniture Society, 2009), pp. 119-120.

At the time of writing no further research has been undertaken.