KIRKHAMFurniture-Making1982.pdf

maker's ca11ing44. Garret-masters specialised in order to survive.
Cabinet-makers were reduced to making nothing but tables or, in some cases,
ba-tables 45 , but even this became further sub-divided. In the 1850s, it
was common in the 'dishonourable' sector for one man to make the table legs
while another made the rest of the table 46 . One man, who discussed his
situation with Henry Playhew, had managed to work as a cabinet-maker until
1848 but, because of the serious unemployment in that year, was forced into
making looking-glass frames after a period without work 47 . He kept at
this speciality out of necessity because he found that when other work
came his way he could not afford to do it since he lost time changing from
one job to another. The most extreme illustration of the extent to which
the division of labour had progressed by the mid-nineteenth century is the
case of the craftsman who had served an apprenticeship as a drawer-maker -
in itself a small sub-division of cabinet-making - but who by 1850 could
find work only as a tassel turner48.
The diary and accounts kept by Henry Price, a non-apprenticed
furniture-maker who learned cabinet-making in the United States of America
where he emigrated in 1842, provide details of the division of labour in
firms in the cheaper end of' the trade in the 1850s and 60s. Price returned
to England in 1848 and, in 1850, went to London to find work. He had
difficulty in obtaining work in decent shops not only because of his lack
of apprenticeship but also because he could not perform certain tasks
expected of an all-round cabinet-maker. Those he could do were not always
up to London standards or did not conform to customary trade practices,
American methods being cruder 50 . The jobs he did obtain meant that he
either made a small part of one item such as drawers for chests-of-drawers
or else was kept at a limited number of items. The firms for which he
worked concentrated production on a few items or particular types of
furniture such as kitchen or bedroom furniture which were then sold to the
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