This famous furniture is at heart of UK life
IT’S one of the most famous items of furniture in the UK. It’s been present at all the political decisions that have shaped the country over the past 70 years. And it also has one of the longest inscriptions you’re ever likely to find carved into a chair, which reads:
“The hand that deals justly is a sweet smelling ointment. A heedful and faithful mind is conscious of righteousness. Justice is influenced neither by entreaties nor gifts. Liberty lies in the laws. Envy is the enemy of honour. Praise be to God.”
We’re talking about the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons and it was made in Cheltenham by the firm of H H Martyn and Co at their Sunningend Works, now Lansdon Industrial Estate (and soon to become a housing development it would seem).
The chair we see now during Prime Minister’s questions when Richi Sunak, or his representative and Keir Starmer, or his representative hurl abuse at one another across the despatch boxes (which were also made in Cheltenham by H H Martyn’s incidentally), is a replica.
Its forerunner was designed by Augustus Pugin in mid Victorian times, but was destroyed along with the House of Commons by a Nazi bomb in 1941. Various seating arrangements had accommodated the Speaker prior to that and until the start of the eighteenth century the chair went with the job. When you stopped being Speaker you took your chair home.
A copy of the 13 feet tall chair designed by Pugin was given by Britain to Australia. This favour was returned when in 1950 Martyn’s was tasked with making a new chair to the old pattern using black beanwood from North Queensland as a gift from Down Under.
Generous though this gift was, it caused a problem. In making the new Speaker’s chair Martyn’s had to be international diplomatists, as well as craftsmen.
Because when they unpacked the consignment, Martyn’s joiners found the timber to be second rate. Explaining this to the Oz authorities and requesting a second, better quality batch was a matter that had to be handled with kid gloves.
Which brings us to the photo you see here of Labour politician George Thomas, later Viscount Tonnypandy, who was Speaker of the House from 1976 until 1983.
The celebratory cake before him is decorated with a model of the Speaker’s chair and a Gloster Gladiator aeroplane. Both have strong associations with Cheltenham because H H Martyn and Co made the Speaker’s chair and the Gloster Aircraft Company was founded in Cheltenham by the same firm.
Light was thrown on to the photo in 2016 when Richard Toms wrote to the Echo and Citizen’s Nostalgia pages.
“My late father Wilf Toms and late brother David both worked for H H Martyn as wood machinists until the company finished and my father actually worked on the manufacturing of the Speaker’s Chair when it was built in the fifties.
“Dad took me to see it before it was shipped off to Westminster before its installation in the House of Commons.
“Fast forward a few years and my brother David met up with George Thomas and he very kindly wrote the note on the back of the photograph of my father machining one of the panels fitted to the chair.
“I attach a copy of that photograph and the reverse with George Thomas’s comments. To complete the story, I have an off cut of the Australian Black Beanwood used in the manufacture of the chair.”
Apart from its significance as the focal point of the mother of all parliaments, the Speaker’s chair is a reminder of the remarkable firm that was H H Martyn and Co.
Martyn’s probably represented the greatest concentration of craftsmanship and trade skills in the country. But Martyn’s parent firm, Maples of London, sold off the Cheltenham company’s assets and closed it down in 1971. Its disappearance was a sad loss, but many made-by-martyn’s products still to be seen around the world are an enduring memorial to a company that was universally regarded as the best.
(The picture of the Speaker’s chair in H H Martyn’s workshop is taken from “The best” by John Whitaker, published by the author in 1985.)
Dad took me to see it before it was shipped off to Westminster before its installation in the House of Commons. Richard Toms