Windsor chair

(sometimes l.c.)

a wooden chair of many varieties, having a spindle back and legs slanting outward: common in 18th-century England and in the American colonies.

[1715-25]

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      popular type of wooden chair constructed of turned (shaped on a lathe), slender spindles that are socketed into a solid, saddle-shaped wooden seat. Those spindles extending downward form the legs and those extending upward form the back and arm rests. The Windsor chair has been produced in numerous local variations and is extremely popular in both Great Britain and the United States. It appeared in the mid-18th century as a rural version of the desk chair, although the basic elements of its construction are found in older prototypes.

      Some of the variants of the chair include the brace back, Philadelphia, smoker's bow, wheel back, sack back, and white Wyscombe, but all fit into one of three basic categories: the low back, the high back with a straight top piece known as a “comb,” and the high back curved into a semicircular shape known as a “hoop.” Specialized forms, including writing-arm chairs, evolved in the 18th century.

      The name is said to derive from one of George III's excursions into the homes of his humbler subjects, when he became so captivated by this type of chair that he immediately ordered several made for Windsor Castle. The name, though not the form, was in use before he was born; indeed, the Royal Household Accounts for 1729 contain a reference to “2 Mahogany Windsor Chairs richly carved.”

      The Windsor chair was produced in many variations in the United States, beginning about 1725. These variations, which were generally lighter than English designs, were frequently painted green—as they were often used in parks and gardens as well as indoors—but increasingly they came to be stained and varnished.

      From the Windsor family of chairs developed a wide variety of “rural” chairs with rush seating, constructed on the same basic principle but usually less complex in design, and intended for use at table. Mounted on rockers, the Windsor design was also made into a rocking chair.

Additional Reading

Wallace Nutting, A Windsor Handbook (1917); Charles Santore, The Windsor Style in America, 2 vol. (1981–87), ed. by Thomas M. Voss.

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