A George IV carved oak foot stool circa 1825

The present footstool is based on a design by the Liverpool cabinet-maker Matthew Gregson, which was published by Rudolph Ackermann in The Repository of Arts, vol. X, October 1813, p.232, pl.25.

Gregson`s design was conceived in imitation of a Classical console and was praised by Ackermann both for its ingenuity and for its elegance and comfort.

Born in 1794 Gregson established himself as one of the most sucessful Liverpool cabinet makers of his generation, acquiring no fewer than three country estates by the time he was sixty, including Oveston Hall, Cheshire. His patrons were principally drawn from the gentry of Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and Wales.  Among his principal commissions he provided furniture for Speke Hall in Lancashire, working alongside his celebrated fellow cabinet maker, George Bullock. Records reveal that Gregson`s library contained many of the most important pattern books of the 18th and early 19th centuries, including those of Chippendale, Mayhew and Ince, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and George Smith and it is intersting to note that Smith himself included a design for a footstool in his Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer`s Guide of 1826, which was based  directly on that by Gregson (cf. Edward Koy, (ed.) Pictorial Dictionary of British 19th century Furniture Designs, 1989, p.267).