Windsor chair

A Windsor chair is a chair built with a solid wooden seat into which the chair-back and legs are round-tenoned, or pushed into drilled holes, in contrast to other styles of chairs whose back legs and back uprights are continuous. The seats of Windsor chairs are often carved into a shallow dish or saddle shape for comfort. Traditionally, the legs, stretchers, and uprights (or spindles) were usually turned on a pole lathe. Spindles may also be carved, using drawknives and spokeshaves. The back and sometimes the arm pieces (if present) are formed from steam bent pieces of wood. Traditional Windsors are typically painted, primarily to hide the different types of wood used in construction, based on their characteristics.

It is not clear when the first Windsor chairs were made. There is evidence of the "stick" construction of stools in the art of Ancient Egypt, more than three thousand years before a recognisable Windsor design evolved. The modern Windsor design emerged as early as the 16th century in England when wheelwrights started coping out chair spindles in the same way they made wheel spokes. This design was probably a development of West Country, Welsh and Irish 'stick-back' chairs, but the evidence on origin is not certain.An early reference to a Windsor chair was in 1718 when the landscape gardener, Stephen Switzer in his Ichnographia Rustica, during his description of a 'walk' through the country estate of William Blathwayt refers to:

..a large Seat, call'd a Windsor Seat which is contriv'd to turn round any Way, either for the Advantage of the Prospect to avoid the Inconveniences of Wind, the Sun &c'

— Switzer 1718, p. 125

Historically, the manufacture of Windsor chairs was in the county of Buckinghamshire, with High Wycombe becoming the centre of production. The first Windsors were of the comb-back variety and by the 18th century, steam bending was being used to produce their characteristic "bow". The first chairs made this way were shipped to London from the market town of Windsor, Berkshire in 1724. There is speculation that the chair derives its name from Windsor, which became the centre for trade between the producers and the London dealers. Thus, the name "Windsor Chair" is more about the style of chair than where it was made, with many diverse forms of Windsor chair being made worldwide.

Traditionally, three types of craftsmen were involved in the construction of a Windsor chair. There was the chair bodger, an itinerant craftsman who worked in the woods and made the legs and stretchers, on a pole lathe. Then there was the benchman who worked in a small town or village workshop and would produce the seats, backsplats and other sawn parts. The final craftsman involved was the framer. The framer would take the components produced by the bodger and the benchman and would assemble and finish the chair.

English settlers introduced the Windsor chair to North America, with the earliest known chairs being imported by Patrick Gordon who became lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 1726. There is speculation that the first American Windsor chair, based on the traditional British design, was made in Philadelphia in 1730.

There are about seven distinctive forms: sack-back, hoopback, comb-back, continuous arm, low back, rod back, and fan back.