William and Edmund Mealing- furniture makers occupied the above Great Marlow High Street premises for many years in the 1800s.
William was born circa 1775 in Penn near High Wycombe. Like so many Wycombe Mealings he went into the furniture trade though he was 10 years in the army first. Wycombe was especially famed at the time for chair making. William was also an upholsterer and cabinet maker while his son William Junior focused on chair making.
The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers cited below conflates the two William Mealings, "my" William and his son. This they acknowledge is a possibility. After a lot of a research I can confidently sketch out the family and their royal links.
William Senior was the one listed as being in the High Street High Wycombe in 1823 (near the Market House). The other William would be only a child then.
William Senior was still by the Market House in 1829 when he went bankrupt. Not only his stock in trade but all his own furniture had to be sold to satisfy his creditors.
After he left the premises, his "large and handsome shop" and home which occupied a single build were put up for offer as well. William must have been doing well as the house had no less than 6 bedrooms, 4 sitting rooms and 2 kitchens not to mention a chaise house, stables and granaries.
His wife was Ann but I have not been able to trace their marriage. She died after 1815 but seemingly well before her husband.
Their son Edmund (in the dictionary mentioned above mistakenly rendered as Edward) married Sarah Stevens in Hedsor in 1828. This marriage like other life events for these Mealings took place in Non-Comformist places of worship. They were of Wycombe in the record. Their two daughters Ann and Jane were baptised at the Easton Street Ebenezer Chapel in High Wycombe.
Circa 1830 the couple moved to the premises in Marlow High Street.
In 1833 the Mealing's Marlow house shop and yard there had an appraised annual value of £9.
It is Edmund then who is the listed occupier or head of household. Where his dad was living then is uncertain. William was still in business however as "William Mealing and Sons" with a premises near the Red Lion Hotel in the High Street High Wycombe before a fire damaged the premises. Either because of that or because he needed extra room William had set up chair making premises in the Newlands area of High Wycombe which was awash with other chair and furniture makers.
In 1838 his company provided two gilt and carved music chairs for Royal Pavilion Brighton, and six chairs for Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. In 1839 they supplied 48 carved beech stools for the music room of Buckingham Palace plus more chairs and stools for the Royal Household 1840-41.
At the time of the 1841 census William was living in Marlow with his son Edmund. Presumably due to seniority of age and experience William was then listed as the head of household rather than Edmund as previously. William was also listed as the head of the business in Marlow in other records. William Junior as I say remained as a chair maker in Wycombe while William Senior focused on cabinet making and upholstery.
In 1853 Musson and Craven's Directory William was also listed as a paper hanger. (Early wallpaper that is)
In 1861 at the time of the census another son of William's - a Robert - was also living and working in the family business. Previously Robert had worked for the Excise office. William died in 1863 aged nearly 90, and Robert and Edmund were jointly listed in Kelly's Directory 1864 as running the business. William is buried in All Saints Churchyard Marlow. His estate was valued as less than £800 which was of course still a lot in those days. Son Edmund was the executor of his will.
Sarah Mealing, wife of Edmund died in 1864 and is on the same headstone in Marlow as her father in law. I will upload grave pictures for them as time permits.
By 1871 Edmund had moved to a large and attractive house on the other side of the High Street. Robert and his wife Sarah lived in the old family premises for a few years before the building was given over entirely to use as a showroom.
On the 1881 census Edmund said he employed 3 men in his business. One was Charles Stark who had married Edmond's daughter Jane. Another was James Stark, brother to Charles. The Stark boys were sons of the Mr Stark who was coachman at Bisham Abbey.
Edmond died a little later age 80. The business continued for a few more years as Mealing and Stark under the care of Charles.
In 1884 the premises were burgled by thieves who managed to squeeze in through a tiny side window they had completely removed. You can still see this window as you enter the Liston Court shopping area. The reports of the robbery tell us that the premises were a house incorporating a two storey showroom for their stock with workshops out back. In the show rooms were glass display cabinets showing the Utrecht velvet and silk plush options for the upholstery plus accessories you could buy at the same time like curtains and tablecloths. It was these items plus a large carpet that the thieves had taken. The carpet had been left outside as perhaps it was too bulky for a quick getaway. What was carried off was to the tune of £60- £70 in value.
Charles had retired by 1891. (I think in 1889.) Hopefully not because of his losses in the burglary. He sold out to Messrs Hill and Tugwood who had worked as his apprentices. In 1898 many of business goods were sold off by auction. The Hill & Tugwood partnership would shortly be dissolved. Their shop was taken over by the neighbouring trader George Wood who would continue to sell poultry and game in his old premises, and greengrocery and seeds in his new. However the Hill family carried on as cabinet makers alone in a different premises.
Researched and written by Charlotte Day.
Mealing grave here
For a biography of the Mealing's assistant John Adams see Kathryn's post here here
More posts on historic Marlow traders are indexed street by street here.
For every mention of an individual on this blog see the A-Z Person Index on the top drop down menu which contains thousands of people.
Sources:
'M' in dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 ed Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert (Leeds 1986) pp. 563-8. British History Online http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/no-series/dict-english-furniture-makers/m Accessed March 24 2021.
1833 Great Marlow parochial assessment. Original handwritten notebooks held by my family and transcribed by me.
Bucks Gazette 23rd May 1829. Copy held by the British Library Archives and accessed by via via the BNA March 2021.
Windsor and Eton Express 17th January 1829. As above.
Bucks Herald 26th July and Reading Mercury 19th July 1884. As above.
South Bucks Standard 11 November 1898
1841,51,61,71,81,91 transcribed by Jane Pullinger.
Kelly's Post Office Directory 1864.
Musson and Craven's Commercial Directory 1853 from University of Leicester archives.
GRO Death Index.
Hedsor Independent Chapel marriages transcribed from microfilm images by me from film #007561679 provided by the LDS church, Intellectual Reserve Inc.
National Archives Royal Hospital Chelsea Soldiers Service Documents Ref: WO97.
Graves Marlow All Saints Churchyard
©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to reuse this research or image for family or local history purposes if you credit this blog and link here so that the sources listed above do not lose credit for their contributions.
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