Lost Art Press

Mechanical Library Campaign Furniture Collection

Posted on by fitz

Often when we start working on a new book, among the first steps are to acquire any good (and sometimes bad) research that’s already been done on the subject – at least for topics that haven’t been written about ad nauseam (see workbenches…or Shaker furniture; we’d need far more shelving to hold everything written on those subjects).

This bookshelf bay holds just about everything Chris could find that’s been written on campaign furniture, from books – OK, book – to various magazine articles and (most helpful) the catalogs from Christopher Clarke Antiques. Also, period sales catalogues for British Empire posting needs.

It also holds some “overflow” and backup tools.

Let’s start with the Army & Navy Co-operative Society price lists. These listed just about everything the British military man could need or want for his self, family or house – whether posted to a colony or not. Find what you needed, then go to one of the stores, or have it delivered (sometimes free of charge), from London to Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). Chris bought three of the price lists, because in addition to a vast selection of pie frills, corsets and party performers (see below), you could purchase campaign (and other) furniture. In our collection are the price lists from March 15, 1907, 1923-24 and 1929-30. These are fascinating – and you can now find most of them digitized online (you could not in 2014, when “Campaign Furniture” was published). But that does take away the fun of paging through them from the comfort of my Rhoorkhee chair (I could lose whole days in these).

The colorful paperback books to the left of the Price Lists are every print catalog that Chris could get his hands on (and in the black binder to the far left are printout of the digitized ones that weren’t available in print) from Christopher Clarke Antiques Ltd., an incredible store in the Cotswolds of England – and the only place that specializes (specialises?) in British military campaign furniture and travel-related antiques. The Clarke brothers, Sean and Simon, kindly answered all the questions Chris had that no one else could, and they proofread “Campaign Furniture” for us. Their shop is half store, half research library. They have every photo of every piece they’ve ever acquired and sold, along with notes about it and its history. They’re under contract for a book with Lost Art Press – and we eagerly await their having time to write it. In the meantime, follow their Instagram feed for close-up looks at some fascinating pieces.

Tucked alongside the Christopher Clarke catalogues is “Britain’s Portable Empire: Campaign Furniture of the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian Periods,” a 2001 museum exhibition catalogue from The Katonah Museum of Art in New York.

On the far right are “Edwardian Shopping: A Selection from the Army & Navy Stores Catalogies 1898-1913” compiled by R.H, Langbridge (David & Charles, 1975) and “Britsh Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas, 1740-1914,” by Nicholas Brawer (Abrams, 2001), the earliest book we know of on the subject. (Brawer was also the curator for the museum exhibition mentioned above.)

The aforementioned black binder also holds copies of various antiques magazines that featured articles on select pieces of campaign furniture, and the working layout of the first draft of “Campaign Furniture.”

Now the tools: These are a mix of tools that are backups in case Chris’s primary versions get lost/destroyed/etc. (the Lie-Nielsen No. 3, a Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 block plane, an extra block plane blade, a Blue Spruce 16 ou. mallet*, a Lucian Avery scorp and a Tite-Mark cutting gauge), and overflow tools – things he now longer uses…mostly because we now have versions of them from Crucible Tool (the Sterling Tool Works dovetail marker and two small Vesper Tools sliding bevels ). Also stored there is the first of the Crucible Tools Sliding Bevel that worked like it was supposed to (a lot of R&D went into making the two locking mechanisms perfect).

The sepia photo is a period original that shows a nattily dressed man leaning against an English-style bench; he’s holding a pair of dividers. So of course we had to have it. The marquetry panel is a thank-you gift from a Kickstarter campaign to which Chris donated.

The bookend (which shows one of Cincinnati’s Art Deco gems, Union Terminal) is from Rookwood Pottery.

– Fitz

*That Blue Spruce mallet is brand new. When I was leaving to teach in Florida last month, I grabbed the older backup one and tossed it in my carry-on. I was assured by my shopmate and a visitor that I would have no trouble with it at TSA – they’d taken one through security many times. They were wrong. So I bought us a new backup as I awaited boarding. (Thank goodness I didn’t try to take my beloved and irreplaceable blue Blue Spruce mallet!)

p.s. This is the fifth post in the Covington Mechanical Library tour. To see the earlier ones, click on “Categories” on the right rail, and drop down to “Mechanical Library.” Or click here.

16 thoughts on “Mechanical Library Campaign Furniture Collection”

  1. Now that is what I call a tough choice: deciding on whether to have Mr. Russell Stanton do the banjo solos, the banjo songs or the burlesque conjuring!

    (I’d also say, judging from what is listed as examples of his repertoire at the bottom of the listing, that he probably would no longer qualify as an “up-to-date” entertainer.)

    Cheers,

    Mattias

      1. What’s more, the artiste furthest to the right in the photo rather resembles the chap holding the dividers in front of that Nicholson bench in ‘t other photo!

        Woodworker by day, artiste by night?!?

  2. Thanks again. This was a great look into a bunch of different processes, and it’s fascinating. I’m going to look for some of those Army-Navy Catalogue.

    I found a copy of the Sikes book after your entry mentioned it. It’s a wonderful book. And my copy is in about as good condition as you’d want from a 1976 book. And it immediately fell apart when I opened it. What a piece of crap binding. And it was every page that started falling out. Every single page. It’s easy to see why the Covington copy is held together with binder clips.

    It’s not surprising that overseas manufacturers started eating our lunch in the 1970s. It feels like everything we made was crap.

    1. The major issue from the 1960s and 1970s is “perfect binding”, which was invented in the late 1800s, but became somewhat more common for inexpensive paperback books in the 1930s.
      It seemed to get used more widely on “fancy” or “deluxe” book editions in the 1960s and 1970s though.
      The publishing industry seems to know about the issue now, since glued bindings are sometimes serrated, or otherwise have the spines modified so the glue adheres better.
      Really thin paper like “onion skin” and the paper used for telephone books actually seems to hold up way better in books glued with “perfect binding” than thick “quality” paper, since very thin paper is really flexible and produces less stress on the glued book spine.

    1. Sounds like a fine project for a dedicated blog reader — I’m listing them on the blog, so for someone who has extra time (I do not), it would be fairly easy.

      1. For a long time, I uploaded new books into Endnote. Volumes in the LOC and other major libraries would download information for me, so I didn’t have to input them individually. After a while it became a bother.

  4. I hope I’m not talking out of turn with this.
    I didn’t know whether I should post it in the last blog post on the Mechanical Library or here, or whether it might be considered inappropriate.
    In the last post on the Mechanical Library, one of the books was ‘The furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans’ by GMA Richter.
    When looking that book up, I came across a three volume set of books on Ancient Egyptian Furniture written by Geoffrey Killen, called ‘Ancient Egyptian Furniture *****’
    The the first book was published in 1980, with the second volume published in the mid 1990s, and the third published in 2017, along with matching reprints of the two earlier books.
    The books cover the woodworking tools used, the joints used, the different types of furniture, etc.
    there are line drawing of some of the furniture, although not detailed blueprints.
    I didn’t know if the Lost Art Press mechanical library already included this, but figured I would mention it if it didn’t.
    A quick internet search didn’t come up with much on the books on woodworking sites, except a one sentence mention in an article on classical furniture proportions in a FW article.
    The other reason I mention the books, is because for some reason the physical books seem to be for sale at a ridiculously low price compared to the original list price on that large internet retailer. ( the list price was $90 in the US, and for some reason the books are currently under $10) The price is from the official distributor so maybe the title is being clearanced?

    2. Hey- just wanted to say thanks for the recommendation and price find. It’s an area I had never considered and just picked up the set of books for a winter read. Regards,

      -Chris

  6. The small print under “Musicians” says “Carriage for bass instruments extra.” As someone who lugs a double bass around, I can appreciate that. When I (rarely) buy a car, I have to bring the bass to make sure it’ll fit. My luthier says my bass was made around the turn of the 20th century. I often find myself imagining how it was transported back when it was new. I suppose it’s not a stranger to horse-drawn vehicles. It has some impressive scars from repairs so I guess not every trip was a successful one.

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