A Quick Primer on Windsor Chairs

There are many misconceptions about the Windsor Chair - the history, the origin and the styles are often times misunderstood.

Folklore has it that in the early 1700’s England’s King George II happened across a novel “stick” chair on one of his provincial outings. Enthralled with the chair, he set forth to have many produced for Windsor Castle. The characteristics of the chair centered around a solid plank wood seat (typically of one piece of wood approximately 2” thick). Wood spindles were socketed into the top of the seat to form the back of the chair. Similarly, to form the undercarriage of the chair, the legs were socketed into the bottom of the seat. 

 The so called “Windsor Chair” quickly gained favor throughout the English court - anything the King liked, the court liked as well. It was around the 1730’s that the chair design, so popular in England, made it to the colonies where it caught on like a wild fire. The ability to quickly hand craft a chair made out of secondary woods, the durability of the construction and the sheer comfort were the main reasons for its instant popularity. Upper class homes loved using them in their garden environments. Independence Hall was littered with them. George Washington ordered 19 for the veranda of his home Mt. Vernon.

The colonists loved the chair and spent much effort in tweaking the designs so that today we have seven principle designs as follows:

Comb-back Windsor Chairs have a back that resemble a hair comb. Most comb-back Windsors are armchairs and the back is formed by a continuation of the spindles through the arm rail. The spindles are capped by a curved, steam-bent crest rail that usually has “ears” which project beyond the back spindles. The arm rail may be formed by a single, steam-bent piece of wood; or it may be formed from two pieces of wood sawed into a curve which are capped in the rear of the chair with another sawed piece of wood - the arm crest.

Low-back Windsor Chairs are always armchairs. Their backs are formed by short spindles, all more or less the same length, and by a flattened, sawed arm rail less than an inch thick that curves outward to form the handholds. At the rear of the chair is an arm crest. On most low-back Windsors the arm crest is attached to the top of the arm rail with a lap joint, and the arm crew separates the inner ends of the arm rail.

Fan-back Windsor Chairs differ from the comb-backs in that the fan-back has spindles that fan out from the seat and the back posts are decoratively turned. Like the comb back, the spindles are capped with a crest rail of some sort.The seats are oval, round or shield shaped. On fan-back arm chairs the arms are mortised directly into the back posts and there is no arm rail at all. Some fan-back armchairs and side chairs may have back support bracing. V-like spindles running from a projecting tongue, or tailpiece, at the back of the seat up through the crest rail. On armchairs the effect is to strengthen the back that has lost the support of the arm rail. Fan-back chairs with such support are referred to as “Fan-back Brace-back” Windors.

Sack-back Windsor Chairs have a back formed by a bow like, steam-bent crest rail that is mortised into the arm rail. It is constructed very much like a comb-back Windsor but with a different crest rail. The spindles of the sack-back extend from the seat, through the arm rail, and then into or through the crest rail. The arm rail is usually steam-bent, but some sack-backs have sawed arms and crest rails. Some sack-backs also have a comb-like extension in the back formed by three to seven of the central spindles and topped by a crest tail of the sort found on the comb-back.

Continuous-arm Windsor Chairs are said to be a purely American design. This chair required the development of a new technique to steam bend the complicated curves of the continuous arm. The backs of these chairs are formed by a steam-bent strip of white oak or hickory that is about an inch wide and three quarters of an inch thick. This strip, when given a second bend on each side, continues forward to form the arms of the chairs. The arm supports rake forward to counterbalance the weight of the sitter against the back spindles - a concept not unlike that used in a suspension bridge. This design is typically combined with bulbous turnings, a shield-shape seat, and well-splayed legs.

Bow-back Windsor Chairs have backs formed by a continuous, bowline, steam-bent crest rail that is mortised into the back of the seat. On bow-back armchairs the arms are mortised directly into the bow. As a class of 18th Century Windsors, bow-backs are more numerous than any other, especially as side chairs. However, bow-back armchairs with baluster-and-ring turnings are rather rare. Shield-shaped seats are the rule on bows-backs. The more ordinary types may sometimes be found in sets.

Rod-back Windsor Chairs are characterized by their squared off tops. The square back on rod-back Windsors is a direct interpretation of the formal Federal furniture of the 1790 to 1815 period. Th bases of the rod-backs typically have “bamboo” turnings. Rod-backs with box-stretchers connecting the four legs, the legs will typically have three bamboo rings. These three rings are generally echoed in the back post and back spindles. The front and rear stretcher are attached to the legs at the middle bamboo ring, and the side stretchers are attached at the bottom ring.

The immense popularity of Windsor chairs in America in the 18th and 19th Centuries continued for a solid 100 years until the 1830’s when the industrial revolution took hold in America. Mass production of furniture made the handcrafted furniture look prohibitively expensive - even the cost effective Windsor chair. And then, less than another 100 years later, in the 1920’s, the Windsor chair re-emerged as the subject of a collecting rage. The public once again fell in love with the simplicity and gracefulness of the Windsor chair. Mass production technology had advanced well enough into the 20th Century that even the complicated Windsor chair could be mass produced. Companies such as the Crocker Chair Company in Sheboygan Wisconsin excelled in mass production of quality reproductions of “antique furniture”. Now, in the 21st Century, after another 100 years Windsor chairs are staging another comeback following the down turn in the antique market over the past 30 years.