This Georgian mahogany worktable was produced by Gillow & Co of Lancaster between 1780 and 1790. For centuries, the name ‘Gillow’ has been synonymous with fine, decorative furniture and the English country home. But much less is known about the company’s links to the transatlantic slave trade.
Robert Gillow, the company’s founder, started his career as a ship’s carpenter aboard a Lancaster vessel that took part in the ‘triangular trade’ – the name given to the three-stage journey of the transatlantic slave trade. Goods such as cotton and wool were transported from Lancaster’s ports and sent to the West Coast of Africa, where they would be exchanged for human lives. These enslaved people were then sent to the West Indies and North America, where they were forced to work on plantations producing British-bound goods such as rum, sugar and mahogany.
When Robert Gillow founded his furniture company in the 1730s, he used his understanding of the triangular trade to strike up deals with plantation owners, who in turn provided Gillow with the mahogany used to make his furniture. In 1756, Gillow purchased his own ship, an ex-slaving vessel that he named The African, in order to further reduce the price of shipping and reap greater profits.
The enslaved people who produced the mahogany for Gillows furniture lived and worked in inhumane conditions. Working from dawn until dusk, they would fell the trees by hand, before dragging the trunks down to a bay, where they would be loaded onto ships set for British ports.
As the movement to abolish slavery began to grow in Britain, the taste for the products of slavery fell into decline. Mahogany furniture such as this worktable started to be seen as an unnecessary evil. The writer Charles Dickens wrote:
‘…in the depth of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves.’
By the mid-nineteenth century, popular styles in British furniture had moved towards gothic and Tudor revivals, which favoured European woods such as oak and walnut over mahogany. Despite this, furniture made by Gillow still held a strong appeal – their pieces became treasured heirlooms in many country houses, eventually making their way into numerous museum collections. Lakeland Arts has twenty pieces of Gillows furniture, some of which have been on permanent display at Abbot Hall for many years. However, this is the first time their links to slavery have been explored.
