Some exciting news (I hope!) – the final part of The Year of the Dealer project is finally ready for launch. It’s been an absolutely mammoth task, spanning the last few years, creating the digital film trails, but we are very nearly ready to press the button and make the project ‘live’. We are aiming to press the launch button in mid April – we’re just working with our fantastic partner museums to make sure everything lines up and we’ll be good to go!
The Year of the Dealer project has involved multiple outputs over the last few years, including a film (Quinneys 2021), workshops and events, and an art-film ‘Echo’ – you can read all about the project on the Antique Dealer Research Project website
Year of the Dealer project website 2026.
The Year of the Dealer digital trails is the final part of the (current) project and has involved creating 50 short digital trails in collaboration with 5 of the UK’s leading museums – The Bowes Museum, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Preston Park Museum, Temple Newsam, and the V&A Museum. We have picked 10 objects at each museum and told the stories of the antique dealers behind the objects. All 57 digital films (there are also 7 introductory and supplementary films) will go ‘live’ in a couple of weeks and will be live for a year, to make 2026-2027 The Year of the Dealer!
To whet your appetite, here’s a promotional film we have made, highlighting the Year of the Dealer project (see below).
Do watch out for the Year of the Dealer when it launches – and we will be posting updates on the Antique Dealer Research blog about the Year of the Dealer digital films and associated events throughout the coming year.
We were very sad indeed to hear that Tony Lumb, of the very well-known antique dealers Charles Lumb & Sons of Harrogate, Yorkshire, passed away over the Christmas period. Tony, together with his wife Mary, was a great supporter of the Antique Dealers Research Project at the University of Leeds – in fact we conducted an oral history interview with Tony and Mary (and James Lomax, former curator at Temple Newsam, Leeds) back in 2014 and we have very fond memories of Tony and Mary – they both came along to the premier of our film of the play ‘Quinneys’ (1915) which we made in 2021, screened at York Picture House in November 2021.
Tony Lumb at home in Knaresborough, 2014. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony was born in 1935 and joined his family antique dealing business, Charles Lumb & Sons, in 1956 after completing his National Service. The business had been started by Tony’s grandfather, Charles Lumb (1878-1963), who was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire in 1878 and trained as a cabinetmaker; he established Charles Lumb & Sons as antique dealers in Harrogate in 1907. Below is a photograph of one of the early business premises of Charles Lumb, a small 19th century workshop where Charles Lumb traded from just after the end of the First World War in 1918 or 1919 – the photograph is from the 1980s, when Charles Lumb & Sons still owned the property and used it as a store for their stock of antiques.
Charles Lumb & Sons, Montpellier Street/Montpellier Mews, Harrogate; shop/workshop opened in about 1918/19. Photograph courtesy of Tony and Mary Lumb.
Charles Lumb opened a shop in Swan Road in Harrogate in the early 1920s, before moving to larger premises in Montpellier Street, Harrogate in the 1930s. Below is an advertisement produced by Charles Lumb & Sons in 1938, trading from their Montpellier Street address.
Charles Lumb & Sons, advertisement, Apollo, August 1938. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony’s father, Frank Lumb and his uncle Reg, together with Tony, ran the antique business after Charles Lumb died in 1963. By then they had moved the business, opening a new shop at 34 Montpellier Parade, Harrogate in 1947, and were one of the most important antique dealers in the UK. Below is a photograph of Charles Lumb’s shop at Montpellier Parade in 1954, just a couple of years before Tony Lumb joined the business in 1956.
Charles Lumb & Sons, Montpellier Parade shop interior, 1954. Photograph courtesy of Tony and Mary Lumb.
When Reg Lumb died in 1976 Frank, with Tony and Mary, continued to run the antique dealing business; Frank Lumb was working in the antique shop until his early 90s; he died aged 97 in 1993. Tony and Mary finally closed Charles Lumb & Sons in 2012.
Mary and Tony Lumb, 2014. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony served on the Council of the British Antique Dealers Association (BADA) in the 1970s, and served as Vice President of the BADA during the early 1980s. He was always interested in the developments of the Antique Dealers Research Project at the University of Leeds, and were so sorry to hear that he had passed away. We were particularly sorry that Tony will not see the launch of the Year of the Dealer project (which launches on 1st March 2026) – Charles Lumb & Sons are the subject of one of the ‘dealer trails’ films at Temple Newsam, the country house museum near Leeds. This wonderful 18th century Dutch giltwood chandelier (see below) is featured in the short film focused on Charles Lumb & Sons – (the chandelier was sold to Temple Newsam by Charles Lumb & Sons in 1950, for £159 and 10 shillings).
18th century Dutch giltwood chandelier at Temple Newsam, Leeds. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds and Leeds Museums & Galleries.
We send our sincerest condolences to Mary and the Lumb family.
Our popular theme of Antique Shops Then & Now continues with part IV. This time we look to Scotland and one of the largest antique dealing businesses in Scotland, John Bell of Aberdeen.
Below is John Bell’s shop at 56-58 Bridge Street, Aberdeen in the 1950s.
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1957. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
And here’s the same building in 2026; no longer an antique shop of course, but one can get a sense of the scale of the John Bell business in its heyday – it was an enormous operation, occupying half of the whole building in Bridge Street, over 4 floors.
Bridge Street, Aberdeen, former antique shop of John Bell of Aberdeen, 2026. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project University of Leeds.
Some readers of the Blog may remember the advertisements of John Bell in various magazines; these were a constant presence from the 1920s up until the 1980s. Below is one of their adverts from 1938, when they were trading from their Bridge Street, Aberdeen shop (which they opened in the early 1930s) and at Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. Bell had bought the famous antique dealing business of Robert Lauder in Glasgow in 1938 and their branch at 398 Sauchiehall Street was Lauder’s old shop. John Bell also opened another branch in Braemar in the 1950s, only open during the Spring and Summer, no doubt to key into the Scottish tourist trade.
Advertisement for John Bell antique dealers, Apollo magazine, July 1938. Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
John Bell was established in 1905 and became of the most successful and important antique dealers in Britain. John Bell (1870-1914) sadly died in 1914, and the antique dealing business was continued by his son, W.S. Bell (1898-1973), who was only 16 years old at the time of his father’s death. Here’s W.S. Bell in 1936, around the time he opened the Bridge Street shop.
W.S. Bell, of John Bell of Aberdeen, 1936. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
William S. Bell expanded the business, creating one of the largest retail, wholesale and export antique dealers in the UK. They also built an extensive export trade with American dealers and collectors, sending vast quantities of antiques to the USA; as well as to the expanding markets for British antiques in Australia and South Africa. Here’s one of the showrooms in John Bell’s shop in Bridge Street in about 1957 (see below).
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1957. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Bell’s shop is packed a range of antiques that would have been attractive to middle class antique collectors and furnishers in the 1950s – 18th century furniture dominated, but as you can see also on display is extensive amounts of antique sliver, as well as antique ceramics and some paintings and tapestries.
One gets a sense of the sheer scale of John Bell’s business in this other image of another showroom in the Bridge Street antique shop (also from the 1950s) – (see below). This showroom looks much more aimed at the wholesale and export markets, with antiques stacked in rows; there’s also earlier antique furniture for sale (mostly 17th and 18th century oak) as well as a much wider range of collectables, suitable for export.
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1958. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
John Bell of Aberdeen are the subject of one of the little films in our Project – ‘Sold! The Year of the Dealer’, and we are very excited to announce that the YoD is finally being launched to the public on 1st April 2026. The John Bell antique in the Year of the Dealer films is in the suite of 10 films at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle – it’s an early 19th century bookcase, which was sold to The Bowes Museum by John Bell of Aberdeen in 1962 (so about the time of the photographs of John Bell’s shop) for £195. Here’s the bookcase (see below).
Early 19th century bookcase, sold to The Bowes Museum in 1962 by John Bell of Aberdeen. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project & The Bowes Museum.
The YoD films will soon be available to view – in fact we’re going to do a series of posts on the research blog about the YoD project in the coming weeks – so do keep your eye on the Blog!
Wishing all our many readers (this year more than 15,000 of you!) a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Our Christmas image this year is a photograph of the Christmas window display of the well-known antique dealers Norman Adams, who were established in Boston, USA in 1923 before opening their famous shop in Hans Road, London (next to Harrods) in 1928. They opened their shop in New York in 1929 (run by a young Alistair Stair); the photograph is of their New York shop at Christmas time 1930. Enjoy!
Norman Adams Ltd, Christmas Window Display 1930, 155 East 54th Street, New York. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds (courtesy of Christopher Claxton Stevens).
Our theme of ‘Antique Shops Then and Now’ continues with part III. The main antique shop ‘Then and Now’ focus is ‘Shirley Brown’ – an antique shop in Tredington, Warwickshire. Shirley Brown was established in 1923 in Shirley in the West Midlands. Our friend, the antique dealer David Love of Harrogate, who initially worked in his mother’s antique shop, Araxie Love in Shipston-on-Stour, near Tredington, tells us that the business was actually owned by the antique dealer Joseph Brown but Joseph called it ‘Shirley Brown’ as there was another dealer called Brown trading in Shirley at the time. Shirley Brown moved to Tredington in 1948, opening his business in a large historic house – here’s Shirley Brown’s shop in the 1950s.
Shirley Brown antique shop, Tredington, Warwickshire, 1953. Photograph, Antiques Year Book 1953 (Tantivy Press).Shirley Brown antique shop, Tredington, Warwickshire, 1955. Photograph, Antiques Year Book 1955 (Tantivy Press).
Here is the building (no longer an antique shop; it’s now a private home), in 2025 – it’s remained remarkably the same over the past 70 years (even the weather vane remains!)
House in Tredington, Warwickshire, formerly Shirley Brown antique shop. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds, 2025.
The building that ‘Shirley Brown’ chose for their antique shop is a typical historic house antique shop business and continued a trend for antique shops trading from historic buildings that goes back to at least the 1920s in Britain – see numerous blog posts on this theme (if you search ‘historic house’ in the Blog search function you’ll see them all).
Shirley Brown was elected to the British Antique Dealer’s Association (BADA) in 1933 and traded from Tredington until the mid 1980s when the business closed, after almost 40 years in Tredington and 60 years trading overall. Tredington is a quiet village rather than a bustling commercial centre, but was obviously a profitable location for an antique shop – it also had ‘The Thursday Shop’, owned and run by Margaret Jameson, who established her antique shop there in 1940 (and also was still trading in the early 1980s). Margaret is more famous as the author of ‘The Thursday Shop’ an autobiographical account of her life as an antique dealer, published in 1969 under the pseudonym of ‘Anne Summers’. Her shop was only open to retail shoppers on a Thursday (hence the title of her book).
Our friend Chris Coles very kindly sent me a photograph of the antique dealer J. Rochelle Thomas (thank you Chris!), and as it’s quite unusual to have photos of historical antique dealers I thought I’d make a blog post about Rochelle Thomas – as you’ll see, he was a very important dealer, but appears (like most of the important dealers of the past) to have been lost to history! Anyway, here’s the photo from Chris:
J. Rochelle Thomas with a model ship, from Illustrated London News, April 21st 1928, p.675. Kind thanks to Chris Coles.
The photograph shows Joseph Rochelle Thomas (1865-1938) with a wooden model of the warship ‘Royal William’ (1719) scale 1.48, and made in 1719. As the report states, Rochelle Thomas bought the ship model (I guess in 1928) for 3,000 guineas (£3,150), an enormous sum (hence the newspaper report), which would have been as much as £1.3m at the time – in relative income value – see measuring worth.com The model is now in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (not on display); it seems to have been acquired by the museum through the antique dealer J.M. Botibol, who had a well known antique shop in Hanway Street in London in the period. Chris tells me that the ship was advertised as ‘seen by appointment at Mr. Botibol’s shop’. It may be that Rochelle Thomas and Botibol bought the ship model in partnership with one another (this was, and still is, a common practice in the antique trade).
Royal William (1719) wooden ship model 1.48 scale. 440mm x 1365mm x 320mm. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. Image National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
J. Rochelle Thomas was a very well established antique dealer by the 1920s; the business would later expand to New York selling to many wealthy American collectors, including scores of English antiques to Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969); du Pont’s collections of American antiques remain at Winterthur Museum in Delaware, USA. Indeed, here’s an image of J. Rochelle Thomas’ London shop from a letter sent to du Pont in 1931, which was right next door to Christie’s King Street auction rooms. The premises occupied by Rochelle Thomas are now part of Christie’s auction rooms.
Letterhead, J. Rochelle Thomas, King Street, St. James’s, London, 1931. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
By this date (the 1930s), the J. Rochelle Thomas business was run by Joseph and his two sons Victor Joseph Rochelle Thomas (1887-1958) and Alfred William Rochelle Thomas (1886-1965). By the early 1950s Rochelle Thomas had opened a shop in New York, at 1166 Second Avenue – our friend Chris Jussel (formerly of Verney & Jussel, leading antique dealers in the USA) and a fount of knowledge about ‘old’ dealers, tells us that J. Rochelle Thomas’ shop in New York was run by Peter Thomas, (Joseph’s grandson), and that it occupied the former warehouse premises of Day, Meyer, Murray & Young; they had no shop window and so, as Chris says, it was an unusual move but the business continued to be a success given Rochelle Thomas’ reputation. Chris remembers visiting the Rochelle Thomas shop in the 1970s, when there were stacks of dinner services all over the floor. By the 1970s Rochelle Thomas opened a branch in Palm Beach, Florida, which, as Chris Jussel tells us, was run by Peter Thomas’ sons (Peter retired to Bermuda in the 1970s); the Palm Beach business traded into the 1980s but sadly Peter’s 2 grandsons died very young and the business closed in the 1980s – as Chris says, the end of a very important dealership. J. Rochelle Thomas sold many antiques to Francis du Pont (and many other American collectors) throughout the 20th century.
The Rochelle Thomas business began in 1859 (they celebrated a centenary year in 1959, according to some of their business letterheads) in Birmingham in the UK. It was started by Henry Thomas, who appears to have been born in about 1815 – the 1861 Census records Henry as aged 48 and working as an ‘ironmonger’ in Birmingham; by 1871 he was working as a ‘cutler’. His son, Joseph Rochelle Thomas (the man in the photograph) was born in 1865 and by the 1890s was described in the Census (1891) as ‘Dealer in Old Bank Notes’; by the 1911 Census Rochelle Thomas was describing himself as ‘Dealer in Pictures, Furniture and Porcelain’, and by 1921 he was ‘Dealer in Works of Art’. His sons, Victor and Alfred, both started working for their father’s antique dealing business from an early age and ran the business following Joseph Rochelle Thomas’ death in 1938. The business was also known as ‘The Georgian Galleries’. J. Rochelle Thomas was elected first President of the British Antique Dealers’ Association in 1918 as well as being a member of several international dealer associations (in Paris, Brussels and New York); so he was a highly respected dealer in the opening decades of the 20th century.
J. Rochelle Thomas appears to have been fascinated by objects that had interesting historical associations – in this sense he was certainly an antiquarian – and often advertised such objects in his sales advertising campaigns in magazines such as Apollo and The Connoisseur. One example (of many!) is an advert for a chair made from the famous (infamous!) mulberry tree wood from Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-on-Avon – if you’re interested in Shakespearian mulberry tree ‘relics’ do have a look at my essay on the subject (see – Mark Westgarth, ‘Well Authenticated Blocks’ in Shakespeare’s Afterlife in the Royal Collections edited by Sally Barnden, Gordon McMullan, Kate Retford and Kirsten Tambling, (Oxford University Press, 2025), pp.103-111)
Advertisement for J. Rochelle Thomas, The Connoisseur October 1928. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
The advert in The Connoisseur October 1928 illustrates an 18th century triangular chair, allegedly made from the wood of the famous mulberry tree – it was priced at £100. Not sure where the chair is now, but if anyone recognises it, do let me know!
Coincidently a while ago I acquired an old sales catalogue produced by J. Rochelle Thomas in 1923 which also contains several items for sale with significant historical associations. The catalogue was issued to facilitate a ‘Clearance Sale’ that Rochelle Thomas undertook in 1923 as part of a refurbishment of his shop in King Street, St. James’s. As the catalogue states, ‘To my customers, as I am about to make extensive alterations to my premises I find it necessary to hold a Clearance Sale of the greater portion of my stock, and I am doing so at 50 per cent. in every case below the original marked prices in order to realise promptly.’ Here’s the cover of the catalogue:
J. Rochelle Thomas sales catalogue, 1923. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Sadly the catalogue does not have any photographs of the items for sale except the front cover image of what is described as ‘Carved English Royal Coat of Arms, Period Edward the 6th; fine preservation. A great rarity’ (priced at £37.10.0s, reduced from £75). The catalogue has more than 750 antiques for sale at 50% discount, including some important historical ‘relics’. Item 198 for example (see below) ‘The renowned Shakespearian Relic ‘The Boar’s Head’ at Eastcheap, carved in boxwood and set in two natural tusks’ and priced at £60 (reduced from £120). This was a famous object in the 19th century, having been in several collections, including that of the antiquary Thomas Windus FSA (1778-1854).
J. Rochelle Thomas sales catalogue, 1923. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
The ‘Boar’s Head’ was offered for sale at the auction of the collection of Thomas Windus in 1855 where it was reportedly sold for £25 and 4 shillings to the Shakespeare scholar James Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-1889), editor of a lavish Shakespeare Folio edition at the time. It was illustrated in The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare edited by Charles Knight (volume 1, 1839-42) – (see below).
The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare edited by Charles Knight (volume 1, 1839-42).
However, the ‘Boar’s Head’ also appeared in the auction of the Windus collection sold by Ansley Windus (Thomas Windus’ son) in 1868, so perhaps it remained unsold at the 1855 auction or was retained by the family. According to the 1923 J. Rochelle Thomas catalogue the ‘Boar’s Head’ was the ‘property of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts’ (1814-1906); it was offered for sale at £60 (discounted from £120). This important historical object has also subsequently disappeared so if anyone knows where it is, do let me know!
Another object offered for sale in the J. Rochelle Thomas catalogue has been easier to trace – Item 741 – ‘The original carved marble portrait bust, by the great Sculptor Roubilliac, of Jonathan Tyers the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens. Purchased at Brandon House, Suffolk, from the sale of the effects of Tyers descendants.’ (£50, discounted from £100) – (see below):
J. Rochelle Thomas sales catalogue, 1923. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Here’s the sculpture (thanks to a photograph by David Bridgwater – see his blog HERE):
Louis F. Roubiliac (1702-1762) bust of Jonathan Tyers (1702-1767), c.1738. Birmingham Museums. Photograph David Bridgwater.
The marble bust is in the collections of Birmingham Museums, who acquired it in 1956 from the art dealer Frank Sabin. It has an illustrious antique dealer history though. It was acquired (it seems together with a terracotta bust of the same subject) by the well-known Norfolk-based antique dealer Rueben Levine (1865-1927) at the Brandon House auction sale in 1919 (see my blog post on the Levine family of dealers (27th July 2025) HERE. The terracotta bust was sold by G. Levine to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1927 for £50 and remains in the V&A (see HERE). The marble version of the bust was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in 1927 (24th June 1927, Lot 77), and may have passed through several collections before it was eventually acquired by Birmingham Museums in 1956.
And so, a little photograph of Joseph Rochelle Thomas, kindly sent to us by Chris Coles, opened up a rich seam of research into one of the leading antique dealers of the 20th century – thank you Chris & Chris!
Our collections of antique dealer ephemera continues to grow, with the latest addition a sales brochure/catalogue produced by a dealer previously unknown to us (that in itself is most unusual!). The catalogue is undated (as are many of these dealer catalogues) but seems to have been published sometime in the early 1920s. The previously unknown dealer is ‘The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd.’, who traded from what appears to be an department store (see previous blog posts on antiques in department stores 31st August 2025; 29th April 2021; 2nd November 2014). The shop was located in Park Street, Upper Street, Islington, London N1 (the location has a long association with antique dealing, especially in the Post Second World War period).
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd. Shop in Park Street, Upper Street, Islington, London, c.1920. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
The business is not listed in any of the usual antique dealer directories, hence they appear to have been under the radar of the project. The business was established in the 1870s and seems to have been primarily involved in making and selling modern furniture (for which they won medals at the Paris Exhibition 1912 and the International Exhibition in Rome in 1912 – see below) and as general house furnishers; they also sold wallpapers, carpets and were contractors for interior decoration. However, the catalogue that the firm produced is very similar to other antique dealer’s catalogues of the period and is full of interesting examples of antique furniture.
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., sales catalogue, c.1920. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project University of Leeds.
What appears to be different about The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., is their mode of business, which, as they state in the catalogue ‘…is not like that of the ordinary dealer in antiques or the general trader.’ As they elaborate, ‘The greater portion of the goods for disposal by the firm are entrusted to it by private owners, who pay a small commission of ten per cent. on sums for which the articles are sold.’ In the catalogue are dozens of photographs of antique furniture alongside a few pieces of modern reproduction ‘Queen Anne’ furniture, so fashionable at the time. For example, a ‘Chippendale Mahogany Settee’, priced at ‘27.10s.0d’; this was from the ‘the Furness Collection’; and an ‘Old Mahogany Circular Pedestal Table’, priced at ‘£15.0s.0d’ (see below):
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., sales catalogue, c.1920. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project University of Leeds.
An ‘Old English Mahogany Tambour Shutter Front Cabinet’ (priced at £12.15s.0d) is listed as from the ‘Earl of Essex Collection, Cassiobury Park’ – the house was sold by the 8th Earl of Essex in 1922 and demolished for its materials in 1927. Incidentally, the famous staircase c.1677-80 from Cassiobury Park (attributed to the carver Edward Pearce) was sold by the antique dealers Edwards & Sons of Regent Street, London to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1932 (see here). Also in the photograph (below) is a ‘Charles II Oak Chair’, ‘in excellent preservation’, priced at ‘£17.10s.0d.’
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., sales catalogue, c.1920. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project University of Leeds.
Many of the antiques illustrated in the catalogue are rather too generic to be able to trace and locate, but I have been able to find one object illustrated in the catalogue – described (erroneously) as a ‘Chippendale Mahogany Side Table. With heavy marble top. Magnificently carved panelled back, supported by four massive carved legs with claw and ball feet’ – priced at £27.10s.0d’.
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., sales catalogue, c.1920. Photograph Antique Dealer Research Project University of Leeds.
The table came up for sale at Bonhams in August 2012 – see description here (see below for the Bonhams photograph) described as ‘A Mahogany Two-Tier Pier Table in the George III style’. The table had by 2012 lost its carved back and the marble was broken in two, but it retained an ivorine label for ‘Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., Park Street, Islington, By Appointment to H. M. The King of Spain’. Bonhams described the table as ‘possibly adapted from a larger 18th century table’; it sold for £275 including buyers premium. It’s worth highlighting that £27.10s.0d was worth about £5,400 (relative income value) in 1920.
Side Table sold at Bonhams 2012. Photograph copyright Bonhams Auctioneers, 2012.
The Furniture and Fine Art Depositories Ltd., catalogue will be joining all the other antique dealer ephemera in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds in due course.
Our new theme of Antique Shops Then and Now (see Part I HERE) seems to have been quite popular, so here’s the second in the theme – with Crewsyke House, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire and St. John’s House, Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in the frame. Crewsyke House (see below) is fine 18th century building, currently (as of September 2025) occupied by Hugo & Blake, ‘bespoke Kitchen and Furniture Makers’, and was recently also a holiday let, but was for the most part of the second half of the 20th century an antique shop; St. John’s House, Knaresborough, (see further below) an important 15th century building, formerly an antique shop in the 1950s, is now a private residence.
Crewsyke House, Moreton-in-Marsh. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research project, University of Leeds, 2025.
The new lives of these former antique shops is perhaps emblematic of the decline of the antique trade in Britain since the Millennium, at least in terms of the previously ubiquitous antique shop. Indeed, Moreton-in-Marsh, like many of the picturesque towns and villages in the Cotswolds, was once packed with antique shops in the Post-Second World War period, rising from about 5 or 6 antique dealers in the 1950s and 1960s, to at least 12 antique shops by the 1970s and 1980s, and 16 antique shops by the early 2000s. Knaresborough, perhaps surprisingly, has much a longer association with the antique shop; it already had 6 antique dealers by the early 1920s, rising to 15 in 1949, and 21 by the mid 1960s. Since then of course there has been a rapid decline in the numbers of antique shops in both Moreton-in-Marsh and Knaresborough, as well as across Britain more generally.
The last antique shop to operate out of Crewsyke House was the well-known dealer Simon Brett, who established an antique dealing business with his wife Edwina in 1972 and ran an antique shop at Crewsyke House from 1980 until the mid-2000s. But Crewsyke House had some other well-known antique dealers trading from the building prior to Simon Brett – George Bolam, for example, ran his antique business from Crewsyke House from about 1963 until 1979 (see below), when Brett took over the shop.
George Bolam’s antique shop, Crewsyke House, Moreton-in-Marsh, 1969. Antiques Year Book 1969, Tantivy Press Ltd.
Bolam started his antique dealing business in 1946 immediately after the Second World War, like many more antique dealers who were demobbed following the war. Bolam began with a shop at 17 Albert Road in in Harrogate, Yorkshire, moving to Parliament Street in Harrogate by 1950; he was elected a member of the British Antique Dealers’ Association in 1951, before moving the business to St. John’s House, a 15th century historic building, in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire in 1957.
George Bolam’s antique shop, St. John’s House, Knaresborough, 1957. Antiques Year Book 1957, Tantivy Press Ltd.
Here is St. John’s House today – now a private house.
St. John’s House, Knaresborough, Yorkshire. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research project, University of Leeds, 2025.
Like many antique dealers Bolam seems to have liked trading from historic buildings and moved his business to the Manor House in Somerton, Somerset, a 17th century Listed Building in 1960. Shortly afterwards Bolam moved the business to Crewsyke House and seemed to have been more settled in Moreton-in-Marsh, staying there until 1979. He moved his antique business again in 1980 to 1 The Chipping, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, about 35 miles south of Moreton-in-Marsh.
Prior to George Bolam’s antique shop at Crewsyke House the property was also an antique shop, run by R. Holford Bailey, who traded at Crewsyke House from the mid-1950s until 1962 when Bolam took over the shop (see below). Holford Bailey moved to ‘Holdford House’, High Street, at nearby Bourton-on-the-Water, another picturesque location in the Cotswolds.
R. Holford Bailey’s antique shop, Crewsyke House, Moreton-in-Marsh, 1961. Antiques Year Book 1961, Tantivy Press Ltd.
So, Crewsyke House was an antique shop for over 50 years before the decline of the antique shop in Britain. Do look out for more blog posts in the series ‘Antique Shops Then & Now’ – I’ll see if I can find the shop with the longest continuous life as an antique shop in Britain – my hunch it that is will be Phillips of Hitchin, who were trading from The Manor House, Hitchin from 1884 until 2015, a total of 131 years!…. but I’ll see there are any other candidates.
A recent addition to the corpus of antique dealer ephemera that the antique dealer project continues to gather is a rare sales catalogue produced by the London department store Debenham & Freebody in about 1910. The small paper catalogue (7.5 inches wide by 10 inches high) has 25 pages packed with images and listings of antiques that Debenham’s offered for sale.
Debenham & Freebody antiques sale catalogue, c.1910. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds, 2025.
The Debenham and Freebody catalogue lists 246 items for sale, almost half of which are antique textiles, lace and embroideries, reflecting the keen interest in such objects in the early 20th century. Indeed, in the Introduction in the opening pages of the sales catalogue the writer emphasises the significance of women as consumers of antique textiles – ‘Ladies who are interested in home needle craft are informed that we have a very large number of quite inexpensive fragments and small pieces of brocades and galons suitable for making up into all kinds of fancy articles.’ Beyond these ‘fragments’ there were many rare items offered for sale, including rare ‘stumpwork’ embroideries and samples of antique lace (see below); the ‘Stuart Embroidered Picture, Subject, ‘Judgement of Solomon’ had a hefty price of £35.0.0. (equivalent at the time to as much as £28,000). The embroidery was also illustrated on the front of the sales catalogue, (see above) emphasising its importance.
Debenham & Freebody antiques sale catalogue, c.1910. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds, 2025.
It seems likely likely that the ‘Stuart Embroidery’ illustrated in the Debenham & Freebody sales catalogue is the same one that is currently in the St. Louis Art Museum in Missouri in the USA. The subject is of course the same, but the addition of seed pearls around the necks of the two female figures to the centre and to the right suggests that the Debenham & Freebody embroidery and the St. Louis Art Museum example are the same. The St. Louis Museum of Art embroidery no longer has the giltwood frame (which was much later than the embroidery). The provenance for the St. Louis Art Museum embroidery suggests it was given to the museum in 1972 by Mrs. William A. McDonnell (Carolyn Vandergrift Cherry McDonnell), who married William A. McDonell (1894-1988) in about 1919; Carolyn’s husband was a prominent railroad executive and banker. It is not known who McDonnell purchased the embroidery from, but it is likely that it passed through other hands before it ended up in the USA.
The Judgement of Solomon, embroidery, 17th century. 7.1972, the Gift of Mrs. William A. McDonnell. Photograph, St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri, USA.
Other pages illustrate fragments suitable for embellishing antique furniture, or for display as relics of past crafts. The ‘Fine Petit Point Chair Back’ (£4.10.0) and ‘Chair Seat’ (£4.10.0) (see below) would potentially enhance an 18th century antique chair; or the ‘Sixteenth Century Border’ (£28.0.0.) (below) would be a fine addition to an antique oak interior, so fashionable at the time.
Debenham & Freebody antiques sale catalogue, c.1915. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds, 2025.
18th century, and even early 19th century needlework pictures (see below), also seemed to be very popular, keying into the 18th century and ‘Regency’ revivals that were generating interest in the period.
Debenham & Freebody antiques sale catalogue, c.1915. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds, 2025.
As previous blog post have indicated – see our post on a sales catalogue produced by the furniture retailer Hampton & Sons (see April 2021) and the earlier Guest Blog Post by our friend Chris Coles on antiques and department stores (see November 2014) – from the early 1900s department stores were key locations for the sales of antiques. Debenham & Freebody for example opened their department store in Wigmore Street, London in about 1909 and had an antiques department in the store right from the start. Their antiques department seemed to have been a great success and they moved the department to a dedicated and larger section in their Welbeck Street store in 1923.
The rare Debenham & Freebody sales catalogue is a significant addition to the antique dealer archives, and will be joining the other antique dealer archives at the Brotherton Library Special Collections at the University of Leeds in due course.
We were fortunate to acquire a small cache of old auction catalogues at auction last week (thank to Keys Auctioneers in Norfolk for the careful packing and posting!). I normally look out for old auction catalogues anyway as they are increasingly rare (especially small local auction sales of country house contents), but this set of catalogues has proved to be especially interesting as they had previously belonged to members of the well-known Levine family of antique dealers based in Norfolk. They give us a fascinating insight into early-and-mid 20th century antique dealing.
19th and 20th century auction catalogues sold by Key Auctioneers 16th-17th July 2025. Photograph, Keys Auctioneers.
The Levine family started as antique dealers in Norfolk in the 1860s with shops in Norwich and Cromer. Levine became specialists in antique silver, becoming a member of the British Antique Dealer’s Association (BADA) in 1920. Louis Levine (1865-1946) established Louis Levine & Son in the late 19th century and had shops in Prince of Wales Road, Norwich in 1900 – he was described as ‘Dealer in Plate, Jewels and etc.’ and as ‘Dealer in Antiquities’ in the 1901 and 1911 Census; he also had a shop in Church Street, Cromer and a shop in London (192 Finchley Road) from the mid 1920s. Rueben Levine (1865-1927), the son of a jeweller Moses Levine, was another member of the Levine family of antique dealers, establishing his business in 1891. Another family member, Edward David Levine (1906-1984) established an antique dealing business in 1931, employing his brothers Victor Jacob Levine (1896-1934) and Henry Levine (1904-1978); Henry established his own antique dealing business in 1935. It’s not unusual for a family to generate multiple antique dealing businesses – see our ‘guest’ blogpost in May 2025 by Andy King on the Lock family of dealers.
The auction catalogues range in date from the 1870s to the 1940s and relate to some significant country house auctions in Norfolk, Suffolk and the surrounding area, including Playford Hall, Ipswich (contents sold by Garrod, Turner & Son in March 1936); Finborough Hall, Suffolk (contents sold by H.C. Wolton in October 1935); Hengrave Hall, Suffolk (contents sold by Salter, Simpson & Sons in March 1946), Carelton Hall, Saxmundham, Suffolk (contents sold by John D. Wood in June 1937) and which was destroyed by fire in 1941, and Thornham Hall, Eye, Suffolk (contents sold by Garrod, Turner & Son in May 1937), which was partially demolished following the auction of the contents and finally destroyed in a fire in 1954.
These 1930s and 1940s auction catalogues seem to relate to the Levine antique dealing business at 74a Prince of Wales Road, Norwich run by ‘R. Levine’, (Rueben Levine) established in 1891. A signature in an auctioneers slip that still remains in the Thornham Hall catalogue is that of ‘G. J. Levine’ (not quite sure who this is in the Levine family?) and an address 74a Prince of Wales Road, Norwich.
Thornham Hall auction catalogue with auctioneers slip. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
The Thornham Hall catalogue also contains annotations made by Levine, indicating maximum bids and some prices realised (in pounds, shillings and pence) with the names of other antique dealers who had bought important lots. Below (see picture), Lot 573, ‘A WILLIAM KENT SIDE TABLE’ was bought for £63 by the London dealer Isaac Staal & Sons (Levine writes it as ‘Stall’) important dealers in antique furniture with a smart shop in Brompton Road, London at the time. Lot 575, ‘A GEORGE 1ST MAHOGANY SUITE’ made the enormous sum of 385 guineas (£404 and 5 shillings – equivalent to about £148,000 at the time). Unfortunately there are no illustrations of the Lots in the catalogue.
Thornham Hall auction catalogue with Levine’s annotations. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
Levine tends to write out dealer names in full next to the Lot numbers and there are some familiar dealers listed as buyers – Rixon, Lee, Mannheim, Cohen etc. The buyer of Lot 575 is noted as ‘JW’, listed by Levine as the buyer of many Lots at the Thornham Hall auction. ‘JW’ is obviously someone familiar to Levine and is almost certainly the dealer John Wordingham. Wordingham established his antique dealing business in 1908 and was a member of the BADA. He had been a neighbour of Levine at 74 Prince of Wales Road in the 1920s, but by the 1930s (at the time of the auction) he was trading from the famous 16th century ‘Augustine Stewards House’, Tombland, Norwich. Below is a photograph of Wordingham’s shop in 1935 just a couple of years before the Thornham Hall auction.
J. Wordingham antique shop, Augustine Steward House, Tombland, Norwich. Photograph George Plunkett.co.uk.
The auction catalogue of ‘The Shubbery, Hasketon, Woodbridge, Suffolk’ (contents sold by Arnott & Everett in April 1939) clearly illustrates the specialist interest of the Levine family as antique silver dealers. In the sections of antique silver in the catalogue (see below) there are lots of annotations and prices with names of various well-known London-based antique silver dealers as buyers – ‘Kaye’ (Angel & Kaye, silver dealers established in the 1930s); ‘Black’ (David Black, silver dealer established in 1915).
The Shubbery, Hasketon, auction catalogue, 1939. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
As well as the catalogues from the 1930s and 1940s, six of the catalogues date from 1908 and have various annotations signed by ‘R. Levine’ so maybe by Rueben Levine (1865-1927) himself? The catalogue of the contents of ‘Manor House, Bury St. Edmunds’ (sold by Charles Bullen in February 1908) is particularly interesting.
Manor House, Bury St. Edmunds, auction catalogue, 1908. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
The Manor House catalogue has two intriguing hand written notes on the verso of the front cover (see below). The notes relate to 2 paintings sold at the auction. The note written in pen (to the left in the photograph) states ‘I hold in partnership with Owen Roe. 2 pictures Lots 121 & 135’, which cost a ‘total of £47-10-0’. It also has a note at the bottom stating ‘O. Roe paid me a Cheque for his share of above Viz £23-10-0 & has the 2 pictures to Sell. Feb 25-1908’. Owen Roe was an antique dealer trading from various shops in Cambridge, the business began in the late 19th century and continued in the family until the mid 1970s.
Manor House, Bury St. Edmunds, auction catalogue, 1908. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
What is really interesting about the note is the list of sums of money to the left, which state: ‘Lot 121’ ‘£17-5-0’, and then below, ‘to 2 Cubitts £3-0-0’; ‘to Parsons & Sons £21-0-0’; then ‘Lot 135’ ‘£2-15-0’, and then below, ‘to Parsons & Sons £1-18-0’; ‘to 2 Cubitts 12-0’; ‘total £47-10-0’ – (I seem to make it £46-10-0, but maths is not my best subject!). Now this all looks somewhat opaque until one notices the other handwritten note in pencil (at 90 degrees) to the right. Here it states ‘Please transfer to Mr Levine lots 121 & 135, E. Parsons & sons’.
What these handwritten notes seem to point towards is an auction ‘ring’. ‘Please transfer to Mr Levine’ indicates that ‘E. Parsons’ was the buyer of the paintings at the auction but for some reason transferred his purchases to Levine. This is classic ‘ring’ activity – indeed one of the key aspects of attempts to stop the ‘ring’ is that auctioneers now specifically disallow transfers between buyers.
For those that are not aware – the ‘ring’ is where dealers would agree amongst each other not to bid against one another at an auction; one dealer was designated by the other dealers to bid for the Lot or Lots at the auction. The dealers would then re-auction any Lots bought in the ‘ring’ in a private auction (known as the ‘knockout’) after the auction (often in the local pub or other venue). The resulting price difference between the object sold at the public auction and the price eventually realised at the private auction was distributed amongst the participants of the ‘ring’. The practice was legal throughout the 19th century, although it was highly criticized. Indeed, it was not until the 1920s that the legitimacy of the practice became more formally and legally questioned, and not until 1927 that the practice was made a criminal offence (The Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Act 1927). So in 1908, when Levine, Roe, Parsons and Cubitt bought/sold the 2 paintings at the Manor House auction, the practice was frowned upon, but not yet illegal.
You can read a little more about the auction ring in the exhibition catalogue ‘SOLD! The Great British Antiques Story’ (exhibition at The Bowes Museum in 2019) – the catalogue for the exhibition is freely available online via White Rose Depository.
There is further evidence of the operation of an auction ‘ring’ at the 1908 Manor House sale when one looks at the catalogue entries for Lot 121 and Lot 135 (see below). There are a number of annotations associated with the Lots – Lot 121, for example, has a note stating ‘£14’, but also has ‘OR’ (Owen Roe) ’65/-‘ (65 shillings, which was £3-5-0); and ‘RL’ (Rueben Levine) ’46/-‘ (46 shillings, which was £2-6-0). For Lot 135, there are similar annotations – ‘C60/-‘ (which I guess refers to Cubitt and 60 shillings, which was £3); ‘P55/-‘ (which I guess refers to Parsons and 55 shillings, which was £2-15 shillings), and ‘RL 5/-/-‘ (which I guess refers to Reuben Levine and 5 pounds). Above this in the top left is another list of sums of money ‘£17-5-0’ with ‘£46’ beneath it, and then [lot]121 ‘£63-5-0’ and [lot]135 ‘£7.15-0’, with a sum total of ‘£71-0-0’. These notes seem to indicate bids or commitments by Parsons, Cubitt, Roe and Levine for the 2 paintings.
Manor House, Bury St. Edmunds, auction catalogue, 1908. Photograph, Antique Dealer Research Project, University of Leeds.
But who were Parsons & Sons and Cubitt? Parsons & Sons were antique dealers who by the 1920s were trading in the then ultra-fashionable Brompton Road, London. Cubitt & Sons were also well-known antique dealers, trading in Norwich and London – in fact at the time of the auction sale in 1908 they occupied the building next door to what would become John Wordingham’s shop in Tombland in Norwich, the famous ‘Hercules House’ (see the building below – you can just see what would become Wordingham’s shop in the 1930s to the left). George Cubitt also operated as an auctioneer in the same period, also trading from Hercules House (also known as ‘Hercules and Samson House’); in fact George Cubitt took the famous auction at Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk in September 1916.
Hercules House, Tombland, Norwich, c.1900.
So, this little cache of country house auction catalogues contain fascinating insights into the workings of the antique trade in the early-to-mid 20th century and are a really significant acquisition for the antique dealer archives and ephemera we are assembling at the University of Leeds. They will, of course, be joining the other dealer material at the Brotherton Library Special Collections at the University of Leeds in due course.
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