Bernard Shaw's Dryad chair used in the writing hut
Dryad
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1925
Materials
Cane
Measurements
34.5 ins (h)20 ins (w)
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274858
Summary
A cane chair, the curved back continuous with the splayed seat. Plain legs united by a X-stretcher. Bow strut across under seat. Plastic maker's label "DRYAD FURNITURE" on back. Used by Bernard Shaw in the writing hut.
Full description
The Shaws purchased outdoor furniture by Dryad of Leicester, established by Harry Peach (1874-1936) in 1907. This surviving example has retained the original label ‘Dryad Furniture’, attached to the back of the chair. According to several press photographs taken of Shaw during the late 1920s in his writing hut, Shaw used the Dryad chair to sit in whilst he wrote. (NT Shaw Photographs 1715219.13). The photograph shows Shaw seated on the Dryad chair, using a cushion covered in Morris & Co. Jasmine Trellis. (NTIN 1275404). Advertisements for Dryad Furniture emphasized ‘beauty and strength in English design and workmanship’, and together with Peach’s desire to adapt craft techniques to industry, there was much in his aesthetic and political philosophy to attract Shaw. Stylistically the chair in Shaw’s writing hut appears to have been manufactured by Dryad during the period 1920-25, and given that the Shaws erected the hut in 1925, it was probably purchased then from Heal’s or Maples. (See Pat Kirkham, Harry Peach: Dryad and the DIA, The Design Council, 1986, p.30). (Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Makers and roles
Dryad , manufacturer