About Us
In 1997 The Frederick Parker Foundation was established by Frederick Parker's descendants, together with many friends inside and outside the furniture industry, to purchase the major part of the Parker Knoll Collection to keep it together as a unique resource for the study of the history and development, as well as the design, construction and restoration of chairs.
The Foundation, with the assistance of Lord Alliance, managed to have first choice in selecting the best possible items, to form a comprehensive collection of 170 chairs. In 2002 the Trustees successfully negotiated a long-term loan of these chairs, together with associated archives, to the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design at the London Metropolitan University, to be used for research and as a teaching aid. The Trustees have since begun to complement the Collection with further purchases and gifts.
The archives are substantial, consisting of details of every model made by Frederick Parker & Sons, later Parker Knoll Ltd, between 1872 and 2003, over 130 years, running to many thousands of illustrations. The furniture is illustrated on glass plate negatives, separate photographic prints and others mounted in large reference books, catalogues and books of drawings. There are boxes of plaster casts of carvings, made so that repeat orders could be matched, together with a substantial collection of wood carvings, including legs and panels. There are also the company's financial records from 1901 to 2003, cost books and ledgers, and scrap-books of everything that the Parker brothers thought might be useful to keep, as well as a library of trade catalogues and furniture history and other reference books.
The Foundation, a registered charity, aims to promote and encourage the study of furniture history, and in particular the design and development of British chairs, using the Collection and archives as an educational resource. It could not have a better location, being looked after and used by a University that encompasses the former London College of Furniture, with its long history of teaching students the skills of furniture design and manufacture on its site in Commercial Road, just five minutes walk from Aldgate East tube station.
Jonathan Arnold
Chairman