Ernest Gimson founded furniture workshops at Daneway House, Sapperton in Gloucestershire in the early 1900s. This armchair was designed by Gimson in about 1905. It was made by either Edward Gardiner, who was employed by Gimson as a chair-maker and wood-turner, or by Gimson himself. The chair is an example of the influential Arts and Crafts furniture produced in the Cotswolds in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The chair is made of yew and has a rush seat. The distinctive beaded ornament of the stretchers, uprights and back spindles, is known as bobbin turning: so-called because the shape resembles the bobbins used in some forms of textile weaving. The use of bobbin-turned elements, popular in seventeenth-century British furniture, and the relatively simple form of the chair reflect Gimson’s interest in traditional crafts and manufacturing techniques.

This particular chair was acquired from Norman Jewson, a former assistant to Gimson and the husband of Ernest Barnsley’s eldest daughter, Mary.