We are very pleased to say that we are making steady progress with making our rich series of Oral History interviews publicly available. The very latest interview to be edited, formatted and uploaded to the Oral History pages on the project website was launched a few days ago – thanks to Patrick Bannon, who is editing and formatting the raw interviews and creating short films with embedded visual material from the archives.
Our interview with Gary Baxter, the grandson of Horace Baxter, founder, in 1927, of the well-known antique furniture dealers, H.C. Baxter & Sons, of the Fulham Road in London, is now available on the website – see antique dealer project Oral Histories
In the interview, Gary tells us about the early history of H.C. Baxter & Sons – how his grandfather used to gather old furniture on a cart around Clapham in South London, from their first shop in Northcote Road, Clapham, to H. C. Baxter & Sons becoming one of the most important trade suppliers of antique furniture in Britain. Below is a photograph of Horace Baxter, taken in about 1950 we think (thank you to Gary Baxter for allowing us to us this photograph).
Gary also tells us about his own involvement in H.C. Baxter & Sons in the interview – he joined the business in 1978, aged just 17 years of age – as well as many other aspects of the history of the antiques trade. You can also listen and watch some of the other oral history interviews we have edited and uploaded to the project website – Philip Astley-Jones (click here); Kathleen Skin (click here); Jerome Phillips (click here). We are currently working on editing, formatting and uploading all the remaining oral history interviews in the coming months.
Mark
antiquedealersblog 