The Archives
The Archives include photographs of every Frederick Parker model made between 1872 and 1939, some on glass plates; the complete range available mounted in large reference books; loose photographs in envelopes that were sent out to customers; sketch books of every "special" made and many drawings of proposed items for specific customers.
The number of models manufactured ran into many thousands. The Frederick Parker standard range consisted of 5000 models, with "specials to order", totaling perhaps double that amount. The Parker Knoll range consisted of over 3,500 models.
There are record books of accounts, costs and board minutes.
In 1930, the firm founded a subsidiary company called "Parker Knoll". The Collection has every catalogue, and photographs of every item manufactured from 1930 - 2003. These run into many thousands of items.
A Buckinghamshire photographer, who had previously carried out a substantial amount of work for Parker Knoll, gave the Foundation many boxes of the work he had completed for the company. This spanned nearly forty years of valuable archive material.
Other items of interest include:
- A library of manufacturer's catalogues, and general furniture
- The Parker brother's comprehensive scrapbooks, which covered a wide variety of furniture designs and furnishings
- A collection of carvings in plaster casts, so that the Parkers could manufacture accurate reproductions on request
- Parker Knoll, along with Sleepeasy, was the first furniture company to advertise their products nationally in the 1930's. The Parker Knoll advertising archive (spanning 70 years) now forms an historic collection
During 2009 a researcher completed the preliminary catalogue of all the archives and filed all the documents in appropriate sleeves and boxes. Further work is planned to organise the archives so that serious furniture history students will be able to have access to them.