If the trademark of the Mouseman needs little in the way of
introduction, then its author probably does.
Robert 'Mousey' Thompson was born in Kilburn in North Yorkshire
in 1876, the son of the village's jobbing carpenter and stonemason.
But he had ambition for the family business.
Inspired by the splendid medieval carvings at Ripon Cathedral,
Thompson began experimenting with his own ideas for producing
furniture in the British vernacular tradition. Eschewing the modern
tools of an industrial revolution, he embraced the mortise and
tenon joint dowelled for strength and mastered the adze as a tool
for shaping and smoothing surfaces that gave his furniture its
distinctive rippled appearance.
Above: Robert Thompson "The Mouseman of Kilburn" (far right)
and his fellow craftsmen with an example of early church
work.
Thompson accepted his first major commission in 1919 from
Ampleforth College and here in the early 1920s he would hit upon
his trademark.
"The origin of the mouse as my mark was almost in the way of
being an accident. I and another carver were carving a huge cornice
for a screen and he happened to say something about being as poor
as a church mouse. I said I will carve a mouse here and did so, and
then it struck me, what a lovely trademark."
The mouse (each one took 45 minutes to carve) signifies
'industry in quiet places' and was finally registered as a
trademark in the 1930s. By then Thompson had 30 men working for him
and the first of the 'critters' - the mouseman imitators, had
emerged.
One man's work from start to finish remains the ethos at the
family firm of Robert Thompson's Craftsmen Ltd, still manufacturing
oak furniture in Kilburn, Yorkshire using the same traditional
techniques and skills.
If his story is the epitome of the Arts and Crafts ethos, then
perversely Thompson is not taken terribly seriously by Arts and
Crafts aficionados who deem his work to be derivative and out of
period. But the public have taken him to their hearts.
There has long been a strong local support - and the auction
rooms of Yorkshire remain the primary source of supply - but,
with a growing fan base in North America and the Far East, Mouseman
now has an international following.
Sotheby's New York hold the auction record for Mouseman
furniture - $70,000 (£40,460) for a distinctive two-section
cupboard c.1923 with elaborate ironwork by the Kirkby Moorside
blacksmith Will Dawson.
Date is the key to the pricing structure. It's pretty
straightforward really. The earlier the piece, the closer it will
be to the original design and the better its colour and
patination.
Many collectors want pieces dating from the Robert Thompson era
(pre- 1955). There's no guarantee that they will have been his
handiwork but they were made under his tutelage.
However, items from the late 1950s and 60s are starting to
acquire pleasing signs of age, and there are attractive forms from
this period that are no longer in general production. As a general
rule, however, post-1955 Mouseman will cost roughly half of what it
costs to buy a newly manufactured piece.
So many old designs remain in production that shape and form
rarely give a clue to the date of a piece. It is something of a
bugbear for the current custodians of the family firm of Robert
Thompson's Craftsmen Ltd that Mouseman furniture and domestic
objects are frequently offered for sale as vintage when details of
construction suggest otherwise.
Here are a few general tips.
A good clue to the date is the signature - the earliest mice
have front paws that were prone to breaking. You will see them on
domestic furniture from the 1920s into the 30s before a cuter
little chap, without paws, makes his debut in the 1930s.
It's not an exact science: if the client wanted them the paws
remained, and just to complicate matters further the paws stayed on
some pieces of ecclesiastical furniture. There are also a small
number of very early Thomson pieces that do not have the mouse
signature at all.
Construction details give important clues. Look closely at table
tops (they were dowelled rather than tongued and grooved until the
early 1970s) or underneath a chair where the position of the 'rush
rail' was changed in the mid 1950s. It was thought preferable to
position the rail, formerly mortised and tenoned to the front legs,
a few inches back. It's a simple but effective rule to
remember.
Early chairs have solid panel backs and legs that were turned on
a lathe and then worked on a bench to form their distinctive
octagonal shape. They will often retain the telltale 'prop' marks
where they were held in the lathe. The classic lattice back chairs
were not made until the end of the 1930s.
The earliest form of upholstery was interwoven leather (1920s
and 30s) followed by slung seats using solid leather seats (until
the 1950s) and then the fully upholstered seats with cotton web
frames and cowhide that are still in production today.
The first screws used for attaching ironwork were handmade with
a square slot. They were replaced with crosshead screws and then
with the flat head screws still used today.
Earlier cheeseboards feature a mouse on the board. From the
1960s the mouse was repositioned on the handle to provide more
strength. A mouse in the centre of a fruit bowl suggests it was
made after the 1960s. Before then the rodent sat on the side of the
bowl.
It is doubtless down to the success of Robert Thompson that
Yorkshire's North Riding has become something of a centre for
handmade furniture. Workshops sprang up in surrounding villages as
former employees set up shop on their own, many choosing to use
another small creature or motif as a signature. From rabbits to
beavers, some 30 'critters' have been identified, of which roughly
half were former Kilburn workers.
It is the spiralling cost of Mouseman furniture that offers the
best reason for hunting down the work of his followers - as a
general rule it costs roughly half the price of the real
thing.
It's generally technically proficient rather than outstanding,
but two names in particular can offer comparable quality
(coincidentally neither of them former Thompson employees). These
are Tom 'Gnomeman' Whittaker of Littlebeck, near Whitby, and
'Kingpost', an enigmatic figure (whose work lacks a signature but
sometimes carries an ivorine plaque) who was educated at Ampleforth
College where Robert Thompson received his first major
commission.
Robert Thompson: The Tale of The Mouse by Patricia
Lennon. ISBN-13: 978-0906899885
Mouseman: The Legacy of Robert Thompson of
Kilburn by Patricia Lennon. ISBN-13: 978-1905080380
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