Gillows
Gillows of Lancaster are best known for their high quality furniture, but for a time in their history, they were also involved in the manufacture of billiard tables. The company was founded by Robert Gillow about 1730, and in the days when billiard tables had wooden beds and cushions stuffed in the same manner as an armchair, manufacture was ideally suited to the skills of a cabinet maker.Gillow seem to have introduced billiard tables of various sizes to their range from about 1760, but although employing a department specifically for this task from an early date, the annual production was not of a particularly high number, being just a handful each year.Having opened a retail outlet in London, Gillow actively promoted themselves as billiard table makers. This was particularly noticeable from the early 1860s, and they continued widespread advertising of this service until 1870. At this date, and for no obvious reason, they suddenly stopped competing with Thurston and the other specialist London and provincial billiard table makers, who were starting to spring up around the country.
Gillows of Lancaster are best known for their high quality furniture, but for a time in their history, they were also involved in the manufacture of billiard tables. The company was founded by Robert Gillow about 1730, and in the days when billiard tables had wooden beds and cushions stuffed in the same manner as an armchair, manufacture was ideally suited to the skills of a cabinet maker.Gillow seem to have introduced billiard tables of various sizes to their range from about 1760, but although employing a department specifically for this task from an early date, the annual production was not of a particularly high number, being just a handful each year.Having opened a retail outlet in London, Gillow actively promoted themselves as billiard table makers. This was particularly noticeable from the early 1860s, and they continued widespread advertising of this service until 1870. At this date, and for no obvious reason, they suddenly stopped competing with Thurston and the other specialist London and provincial billiard table makers, who were starting to spring up around the country.
Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, Woodbridge, 2008, Vol.I p421-2 susan stuart devotes a chapter to billiard and ‘troumadame’ tables and includes a drawing and photograph of a later table with reeded legs and a timber bed made for James howard in 1833. The earliest Gillows tables appeared in London in 1768 and were instantly so successful that they probably encouraged Thomas Gillow to establish a shop in Oxford street. By 1770 the Gillow brothers claimed that few could equal them in the trade. As well as the traditional solid table they manufactured two types of portable table, this was before the invention of slate beds! Other early features included hoop shaped pockets, alluding to the very earliest form of billiards from the 1680s when billiards was essentially indoor croquet, and lint-stuffed cushions which were purely to contain the ball rather than provide a bounce.
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