A timber armchair cleverly made from naturally formed pieces of wood draws many comments from visitors to our museum.
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The chair was donated to the museum by Mr and Mrs Dick Miles in 2009 and was said to have belonged to William Arthur, one of the first permanent residents of South West Rocks and owner of the Jubilee (now Pacific) Guest House.
The available documentation states it was made by Jonathan Emms at his Greenhill workshop in the 1880s. It was made from timbers gathered from the bush, intact with their original gnarled twists, with each piece selected to fit into the design of the chair.
An extract from notes written in Jonathan's own hand reads "For use to Aiwyn, Wes and Cliff. Box limbs the best for sides and backs of chairs with straight halfpieces of poles of bloodwood sawn down the middle first, also grubby pieces cleaned out.
Jonathan Emms was born in Norfolk, England on 27 May 1838 and left England at the age of eighteen. He spent seven years gold-mining in New Zealand and Victoria before coming to the Lower Macleay in 1864 and settling near Frederickton. He built a shack and tried to farm the land and raise pigs.
A continuing battle with dingoes attacking his stock led him to take land west of Greenhill, where he grew grapes and fruit. He built a slab cottage and workshop on the Armidale Road, near where the gun club now stands. Pear trees were still growing near the gun club a few years ago.
Around 1871 he married Mary Ann Fisk in Kempsey. Of the ten children, only about four, two daughters and two sons, appear to have survived into adulthood.
Mr Emms was a fine craftsman and made precise diagrams for each piece of furniture using a lead pencil. Photographs held by the Macleay Valley Historical Society contain examples of his plans for bush houses, garden seats, hat racks and hall stands.
The detail of the fernery drawing clearly indicates the precise guidelines to construct an object and also indicates his skills as a craftsman.
Rustic furniture made from natural timber forms was very popular in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Long popular in England, rustic furniture glorified nature and trees and the simple pleasures of country life.
It enjoyed a surge in popularity with the Gothic revival in England in the 1820's and 1830's and spread to America and Australia.
An article on making rustic furniture from the Scientific American reprinted in the Australian Town and Country Journal in 1878, may have inspired many people like Jonathan Emms to try their hand at it.
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