The most important building in West Wycombe – hiding in plain sight.
There are thousands of available pictures of West Wycombe, but all the photographers seemed to put their backs to what was the most important building in the late 1800s, North’s furniture factory, employing over 350 people in its heyday. Only this picture shows it in full, taking the space that is now the village hall and all the car parking either side.
Benjamin North moved to West Wycombe in 1837 to take a job as a travelling chair salesman for the chairmaker Thomas Harris, who employed about 40 people in small workshops. He had to walk with his cart-load of chairs, often walking 20 miles each day.
In 1853 he decided to set up his own chair-making factory, B. North and Sons, using an old malthouse, and by 1862 already had about 100 workers. He continued to spend most of his time travelling the country to get new orders, but now by train. He gave work as a chair caner to Elizabeth Hutchinson aged 27, who was deaf and mute and had been living in the workhouse until the job offer. In 1866 a young boy of about 14 years, Lewis Langley, tried to set fire to the factory in two places, he didn’t give any reason.
In January 1870 the factory completely burnt down ( cause unknown), although the fire brigade managed to save Lady Dashwood’s conservatory behind the factory. The new factory shown above was built by September. Norths’ also used some houses up Church Lane for polishing and packing chairs, but one of these caught fire in 1885.
In 1872 the female chair caners at Downley went on strike and marched straight down to North’s factory to encourage those ladies to ask for more pay. Mr North told them “if they were not satisfied, they could leave”, so they did ! Some men also joined the union and were locked out. The Wycombe furniture strike took months to resolve. After these difficult times, Benjamon North decided to retire, leaving the business to his eldest son Benjamin North (2nd).
By 1880 Norths had expanded their lines to include settees and cabinets etc, in many types of exotic woods. Some of these were displayed in their chair arch in 1889, as described in another post here.
In 1893 the company had its first full day out, 412 people on a special train to Portsmouth to see all the sights on the coast.
Norths had been using land at West Wycombe station to store timber, and had a saw-pit there, but in 1902 the railway company wanted the land back to expand the station (near the present-day Grant and Stone timber merchant).
Negotiations with the Dashwoods for any land nearby broke down, so Benjamin North bought three fields at Piddington and created a new factory and village there, which opened in Sept 1903.
The West Wycombe factory was empty for several years, there were monthly advertisements for a “COMMODIOUS CHAIR FACTORY TO LET” until October 1905, but eventually Abbots took it up. They used the factory until 1938 when they moved to Sands, and it was demolished around 1939. The plot was just a car park until the hall was built in 1960.
This article was kindly written by Simon Cains, author of Piddington and furniture book.
