Furniture by Gillows of Lancaster for Thomas English of Boston.

The eminent English cabinetmakers Gillows of Lancaster and London exported large quantities of furniture to the West Indies during the eighteenth century, and some of this furniture was probably reexported to North America through the colonial coastal trade. References to furniture exported by Gillows directly to the United States are extremely rare. Indeed, only one substantial order has been found; it is of particular interest because the consignments were ordered in 1785, not long after the end of the American Revolution. (1) Thomas English, a Boston merchant, purchased two batches of furniture from Richard Gillow in Lancaster, one for his house in Boston and the other to sell on his behalf and that of his senior partner, Thomas Burrow (1753-1820), a West Indies merchant in Lancaster. In this article I will attempt to trace what is known about English, Burrow, and their partnership; examine Gillows furniture similar to that exported to Boston; and explore how the furniture may have been marketed at the very beginning of the federal period.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 1A OMITTED]

On February 11, 1784, a Thomas English married Penelope Bethune (b. c. 1763), the daughter of George and Mary Faneuil Bethune, in Boston. (2) The Bethunes were an important Boston family, but little is known about English's background. Even his parents' names are unknown, although in the 1780s he wrote several letters to his mother regarding a legacy left to him by his father. (3) He was probably the Thomas English who was christened in Boston in 1759 and died there in 1839. (4) Whatever his origins, English must have had some status in the commercial community because he is always respectfully referred to as "Mr. English" in the Gillows records.

Little is known about the short-lived partnership between English and Burrow; it began about 1785 and was dissolved in 1788. (5) Burrow probably saw it as an opportunity to expand his import-export business to include North America by using English's Boston connections. They were apparently among the "vast number of adventurers," who, according to the Boston Gazette, and the Country Journal on June 13, 1785, brought to the new country, "from all quarters of Europe, immediately subsequent to the peace ... large quantities of goods, which they were obliged to dispose of at all events." American landlords, however, anxious to make a quick buck raised rents to such exorbitant levels that many of these merchant adventurers found it impossible to pay even their lodging expenses, and so the bubble burst, prompting citizens to complain about the stagnation of trade and manufactures. (6)

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 3A OMITTED]