Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/19

 11 8. VII. Jan. 4,1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 11 Chippendale the third—on 23 April, 1749, at St. Paul's, Covent Garden; and he con- siders that his father must have been dead by 1797, as a Chancery suit arose con- cerning his estate, in which his wife Eliza- beth (whom he assumes to have been his second wife) and four children (Thomas, Mary, John, and Charles) are named. Miss Simon claims to be the first to give the actual date, and shows that Thomas Chippendale (II.) died on 13 November, 1779, and was buried at St. Martin's ; no age is stated, however, though that age might have helped one. Administration to his estate was granted in the following month to his widow Elizabeth. Another grant was made in 1784 (by which time she was dead) to one Philip Davies, who was appointed administrator in her stead " in order to attend and confirm proceedings then im- pending in the Court of Chancery." These proceedings are no doubt those to which Col. Chippindall refers, and were for the recovery of a long-outstanding debt of the Chippendale firm due from the notorious Theresa Cornelys, of Carlisle House, Soho, who was the subject of notice in ' N. & Q.' a few years ago (see 8 S. vi. 3, 93; viii. 115, 157, 277; ix. 281; x. 171, 311). She had been declared a bankrupt in 1772, when she had assigned her estate to Chippen- dale and other creditors, and eventually died in the Fleet Prison in 1797. Miss Simon states that the final result of these lawsuits between the creditors is not known, but it did not seem as if the Chippendales recovered much of their money. On the death of Thomas Chippendale (II.) in 1779 his eldest son, Thomas—the last of the triumviri—succeeded to the business, and he himself died, unmarried, in December, 1822, his will being proved in the following month. It would seem that Col. Chippindall has made out his statement that the Chippen- dale family came from Ottley, co. York, and he claims that if Thomas Chippendale came from Worcestershire, it was only as part of his route to London. There are authorities, however, besides Miss Simon who give the family a Midland habitat. In Erdeswick's ' Survey of Staffordshire ' (1884), p. 468, it is stated that the family of Chippendale once possessed the estate of Blakenhall in the same county. Mr. F. Litchfield, both in his ' Illustrated History of Furniture' (1903) and in his most useful smaller book ' How to collect Old Furniture' (1904), speaks of Thomas Chippendale as having been a native of Worcestershire. Mr. K. Warren Clouston, at p. 31 of ' The Chippendale Period in English Furni- ture ' (1897)-his cited by Mr. Habry Hems in ' N. & Q.' at the second reference—also claims the Thomas Chippendale as having been born in Worcestershire. This is followed by Mr. W. E. Penny in an article on ' Thomas Chippendale and his Work ' in The Connoisseur, who says :— " Thomas Chippendale, it is believed, was born at Worcester in the first decade of the eighteenth century." Mrs. R. S. Clouston, in a series of articles on ' Thomas Chippendale' in the same periodical,* whilst mentioning the belief that he was born in Worcester, says fhat the dates of his birth and death are quite uncertain. She, however, gives reasons for supposing that he must have died between 1762 and 1765, which we know now could not have been the case. In such a general history of English furniture as Mr. Percy Macquoid's great work one, perhaps, could scarcely expect to find much detailed information as to the family of the various craftsmen whose work he so fully and masterfully deals with ; but on p. 134 of vol. iii. ('Age of Mahogany') of his ' History of English Furniture ' (1906) the author says :— " But little is known of the career of this cele- brated craftsman [Thomas Chippendale II.J, and so much has been written on his work and influence that it is not necessary to attempt here to introduce his personality in connection with the furniture called after his name. It has been proved that he came to London before the year 1727 with his father, who was a carver, gilder, and cabinet-maker ; that he married his first wife in 1748, took a shop in 1749, moved to St. Martin s Lane in 1753, and published his celebrated book ' The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director in 1751. Facts also go to prove that he died at the age of about 70. If the date of his birth was, say, 1709, he would have been thirty-nine when he married, and forty-four at the date of the ' Director's ' appearance. These dates are given merelv to suggest that it was not till after the appearance of the ' Director ' that Chippendale s influence really affected English furniture. Mr. Macquoid does not state what the facts are that go to prove that Thomas Chippen- dale died " at the age of about 70 " ; and it may, I think, be fairly assumed that, as the first volume (' The Age of Oak') o his great work was published in 1904, he had not seen, when he wrote these words, references to The Connoisseur, as I have detached these and other articles from that periodical, and have kept them separately.
 * I regret that I am unable to give the exact