Thomas Rohan (1860/1-1940)
Thanks to the generosity of John Cresswell, we know quite a lot more about the early 20th century antique dealer Thomas Rohan (1860/1-1940). John very kindly sent us the fruits of his own research into Rohan, including the fascinating fact that Rohan appears to have had a role in the design of his own house, in Bournemouth – John actually lived there for a time.
Rohan, as previously indicated in earlier posts in the project blog, has been suggested as the model for the antique dealer ‘Joe Quinney’ in Horace Annesley Vachell’s novel Quinneys (1914), and was also the author of several books on collecting, and on the antique trade itself – Confessions of a Dealer (1924); Old Beautiful (1926); In Search of the Antique (1927); Old Glass Beautiful (1930); and Billy Ditt, the romance of a Chippendale chair 1760-1925 (1932) – but John also tells us that Quinneys was made into a film, twice – in 1919 and 1927 – we are currently trying to find copies of these rare films, so if anyone knows of a copy do let us know!
John also tells us that Rohan married twice – and one of his wives was the daughter of William Robertson, J.P. D.L. of Pembrokeshire, and that he had three children (2 sadly died early), and was survived by his son Robert Rohan. Thomas himself died on 13th January 1940 and was buried at Westbury in Bristol. There are many other details on the life of Thomas Rohan that John shared with the project, and we are populating Rohan’s biography on the interactive project website, so keep your eye on that when we launch the site.
In the meantime we would like to say a big thank you to John Cresswell for his generosity!
Mark
antiquedealersblog 