FANNY

HEAL

DIRECTOR 1833-1840

PEOPLE

After Heal’s founder,

John Harris Heal, died in

1833, his widow, Fanny

Heal, persevered with the

family business, renaming

the firm Fanny Heal & Son,

Bedding Manufacturers,

and moving premises in

1840 to the current site

at 196 Tottenham Court

Road. She and her son,

John Harris junior, formed

a successful partnership,

expanding the business

and building a new

bedding factory, with

a feather-dressing mill,

behind the store. This

portrait is a copy of

an original, and now

hangs in Baylin’s Farm,

Beaconsfield, at the

Heal family home.

ADVERTISING

IN DICKENS

NOVELS

1837

DICKEN'S UNBOUNDED POPULARITY AND HIS IMMENSE READERSHIP PROVIDED UNPRECEDENTED MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES

"

MARKETING

“Most of Charles Dickens’s

(1812-1870) novels were

issued in monthly shilling

parts, with the text of

the novel sandwiched

between advertisements,

in green paper wrappers.

These included everyday

commodities, from clothes

to pens, pills to potions,

as well as furniture.

“Heal & Son promoted

its French mattresses

in The Pickwick Papers.

Despite poor initial sales,

Dickens’s 1836 novel

catapulted him to fame,

becoming the publishing

sensation of the century.

One of the first companies

to see the advertising

potential, Heal & Son

made regular appearances.

Adverts became larger and

more elaborate, eventually

taking the shape of

expensive full-page notices

promoting the company’s

bedroom furniture.

“Dickens’s unbounded

popularity and his immense

readership provided

unprecedented marketing

opportunities for the

company. It is perhaps

partly due to its longstanding

association

with the great Victorian

novelist that Heal’s has

become one of the iconic

English brands.”

dr florian schweizer

DIRECTOR, the charles

dickens museum

RIGHT

cover for Bleak House,

An Instalment that

contained Heal & Son’s

advertisement

"

GREAT

INTERNATIONAL

EXHIBITION

1862

PRODUCT

This ornate half tester-bed

in the Louis XVI style was

the centrepiece of a set

of bedroom furniture

designed by Heal’s for

the Great International

Exhibition, from May to

October, 1862, in South

Kensington, London.

The cream-enamelled

mahogany was decorated

with gilded carvings

in lime wood, and the

embroidered white satin

hangings lined with cerise

silk. The bed and its

accompaniments cost

2,000 – a price tag of

more than 100,000 in

today’s money.

OFFICER’S

CAMPAIGN BED

1863

PRODUCT

John Harris Heal was keen

to market furniture and

bedding to overseas

officers following the

outbreak of the Crimean

War in the 1850s. He

demonstrated its portability

in catalogues with an

illustration showing

a campaign bed neatly

packed on a horse.

PRODUCT

CATALOGUE

1900

PRODUCT

An example of an early

20th-century catalogue

showing metal bedsteads

for sale at Heal & Son,

pictured in black and

yellow, using modern

colour printing techniques.

PARIS

AWARDS

FOR HEAL’S

1900

ARCHIVE

Ambrose Heal was keen to expand the business across the Continent. He exhibited bedroom furniture at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, winning several medals for Heal’s furniture. The exhibition, which ran from April to November, attracted more than 50 million visitors.

SIR AMBROSE HEAL

CHAIRMAN 1913-1953

“Despite his reluctance

to be involved in public

life, his contributions

were recognised by his

contemporaries, who

elected him to the Art

Workers Guild and the

Society of Antiquaries.

He was also honoured to

receive the Royal Society

of Arts’ gold Albert Medal

and be elected to the

select new group of Royal

Designers for Industry.

“Ambrose’s approach

to life and work was one

of integrity and based on

his firm belief that it was

his mission to improve

the design of the objects

with which we surround

ourselves. In the words

of Gordon Russell: ‘His

outlook was not just a

fashion of the moment.

It was a deeply felt way of

life with him and affected

everything he did.’”

PEOPLE

Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-

1959) was a designer,

retailer and influential figure

whose time at the helm of

Heal’s put the firm at the

centre of design and retail

innovation in Britain. His

grandson Oliver describes

his multi-talented forebear.

The Designer

“Ambrose Heal joined

the family firm in 1893,

after serving a two-year

apprenticeship as a

cabinet-maker. Strongly

influenced by the Arts and

Crafts movement, much of

his work was based on his

study of antique furniture.

He received his knighthood

in 1933 for services to

industrial design.

“Ambrose married Rose

Rippingille in his early

twenties and they had a

son, Cecil Ambrose. Sadly,

Rose died in 1900 and

Cecil was killed on the

front line in 1916. By then,

Ambrose had remarried,

to Edith Florence Digby

Todhunter, although

he never fully recovered

from his grief.

ABOVE

Ambrose Heal

RIGHT

One of Ambrose’s designs

HEAL’S CENTENARY

1910

ARCHIVE

Commemorative stamps

marking the company’s

first century of trading,

featuring Heal’s hallmark

‘At the Sign of the Four

Poster’ logo.

CAPPER’S

FARM

1910

LONDON’S TELECOM TOWER WOULD OVERLOOK CAPPER'S FARM IF IT WERE STILL STANDING

ARCHIVE

Capper’s Farm was a

17th-century farmhouse

behind the furniture store

where some of Heal’s

employees lived.

“The bedrooms were

furnished with 2ft 6in

iron bedsteads with spiral

spring bottoms, Heal’s

mattresses, pillows, etc,

and each occupant

had a chest of drawers

with a mirror, a pottery

toilet set and a candlestick,

with one candle per week.

There was no other lighting

or heating,” remembers

Leonard Thoday in an

account of his time as

a Heal’s employee. He

joined the firm in 1910

and lodged with other

workers at the farm.

“Breakfast was served at 8am, after which we were due in our offices at 8.30am. Lunch was served in two sittings, consisting of a joint with vegetables and a sweet. The shop closed at 7.30pm. Those who ‘lived in’ went to our rooms after finishing work, then we went down tothe dining room.“Nine nights out of 10 there was bread and cheese, and a glass of beer for supper. This was the worst meal of the day and was often deposited in the piano, which made a good hiding place for it.” In 1913, the house was pulled down to make way for a new Heal’s bedding factory and other buildings.

*

CECIL BREWER BUILDING EXTENSION 1916

ARCHIVE

An extension to the original 19th-century Heal’s building was completed in 1916 by architect and cousin of Ambrose Heal Cecil Brewer (1871-1918). The Portland stone facade and colonnade were added, along with the distinctive curved windows (below, left) – later controversially removed when Sir Terence Conran’s Storehouse Group owned Heal’s in the 1980s. A spiral staircase was also built at the back of the building, taking customers up to the new Mansard Gallery on the fourth floor.

MANSARD GALLERY

1919

ARCHIVE

“Ambrose Heal had a keen interest in fine art and his involvement with painting and drawing paralleled his development as a designer, manufacturer and retailer.

“He was familiar with the work being carried out at the Slade School of Fine Art, in the main quadrangle of University College London (UCL), on Gower Street, near Heal’s on Tottenham Court Road. Ambrose knew the school very well and probably attended classes there. He had numerous friends at the Slade and met

his second wife, Edith Todhunter, there at the end of the 19th century.

“It is therefore no surprise that Ambrose – always interested in the overlap between art, design and commerce – should set up a gallery at Heal’s to show the best and, in many cases, most innovative art. Details about the Mansard Gallery are incomplete, but documentation shows it played an important part in the development and dissemination of work that crossed boundaries and introduced artists to new audiences.“Many other exhibitions included shows by Slade alumni William Roberts, Edward Wadsworth and Mary Fedden. Interspersed with exhibitions of contemporary furniture, fabrics and industrial design, they firmly located the gallery as embedded within contemporary culture, rather than existing within the more conventional framework of a traditional art gallery or museum.”

JOHN AIKEN SLADE PROFESSOR/DIRECTOR, SLADE SCHOOL OF FINE ART, UCL

HEAL’S

CAT

1920s

ARCHIVE

The Heal’s cat, which can still be found on the Cecil Brewer staircase in the store, has become something of an icon. Dodie Smith, author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians and one-time Heal’s sales assistant, wrote about it in her autobiography Look Back with Astonishment. “On the sill of a window that lit it was a very tall bronze cat (really a serval) which I came to think of as presiding deity of Heal’s. I later let it be known that it could grant wishes and I was to see various members of the staff reaching up, rather furtively, to touch its paws. And when I eventually sold the cat, which was priced at 40, Mr Heal wrote firmly to the customer – who must have been startled – cancelling the sale, and had a card lettered saying ‘Heal’s Mascot. Not for Sale’.”

STORE INVENTORY POSTER

1928

MARKETING

Prior to Sir Edward Maufe’s 1937 extension, this poster shows the store’s layout, with the Mansard Gallery on the fourth floor. The poster was used for promotional purposes and was designed by artist and designer Robert Percy Gossop’s (1876-1951) agency R.P. Gossop.

DODIE SMITH

1923

PEOPLE

Dodie Smith (1896-1990), who later became an acclaimed playwright and penned the novels I Capture the Castle and The Hundred and One Dalmatians, joined Heal’s in 1923 as a shop assistant. She quickly made her mark, renowned among staff for her sharp tongue and quick wit. Undeterred by the formidable presence of Ambrose Heal’s long-term mistress Prudence Maufe, she embarked on an affair with Heal, which she delighted in keeping secret from other staff.

ECONOMY

WITH A DIFFERENCE

1933

MARKETING

The company launched ‘Heal’s Economy Furniture 1932 and All That’, a catalogue designed to boost sales to help Heal’s survive the Great Depression. The range was mailed out to carefully selected potential customers – only homes with an annual rental value of 50 or more and a telephone. But it was the following year when Heal’s made waves by taking a step in the Bauhaus direction. The ‘Economy – with a Difference at Heal’s – 1933’ catalogue featured chromium-plated steel furniture, including this chair (below) designed by Mies van der Rohe, which sold for 2 9s 6d.

BELOW

COVER OF A 1930s

MARKETING PAMPHLET

LEFT

POSTER FROM THE SAME ERA

SIR EDWARD

& PRUDENCE

MAUFE 1937

ARCHITECT & INTERIOR DESIGNER

PEOPLE

Sir Edward Maufe

(1883-1974) designed

the extension to the Heal’s

building at Tottenham

Court Road. He was also

the architect of Guildford

Cathedral which is

reflected in the Alfred

Mews side of the building,

featuring a five-storey high

cathedral-style window.

Before they married,

Prudence Maufe joined

Heal’s as an interior

designer in 1919, and

soon became Ambrose

Heal’s long-term mistress.

As well as being his

lover, Prudence retained

her position as a key figure

within the company for

many years. She helped

Ambrose set up Heal’s

Wholesale and Export,

which later became Heal’s

Fabrics, of which she was

a director alongside Tom

Worthington (see page 78).

With an eye for design

and detail in both her

business and personal

lives, she amassed a

collection of more than

2,000 shoe buckles. This

was given to the nation

in the 1970s and can be

viewed at Kenwood

House, London.

ABOVE

SIR EDWARD MAUFE'S NEW BUILDING EXTENDED THE SHOP PREMISES SOUTH ON TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, TO THE CORNER OF ALFRED MEWS, IN 1937

HEAL'S AT WAR

1940's

"HEAL'S, LIKE SO MANY COMPANIES, TURNED FROM MANUFACTURE OF GOODS FOR CIVILIAN CONSUMPTION IN PEACETIME, TO PRODUCING THE MILITARY EQUIPMENT NEEDED FOR BRITAIN'S VERY SURVIVAL"

JAMES TAYLOR, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

LEFT

ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED BOOK ABOUT HEAL'S, DATING FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR, IT DEPIICTS A FOUR-POSTER BED ON TOP OF A TANK.

TOM

WORTHINGTON

DIRECTOR OF HEAL'S FABRICS 1948-1971

PEOPLE

Tom Worthington took over the helm as director of Heal’s Wholesale and Export in 1948, concentrating the company’s efforts on textiles and changing its name to Heal’s Fabrics. In 1951, he produced Lucienne Day’s Calyx (see page 85), sending shock waves around the world of design and textiles. For the next two decades, Worthington almost single handedly steered contemporary textile design. His successful formula of commissioning designers straight out of college – Colleen Fan, Peter Hall, Barbara Brown and Doreen Dyall to name a few – and ensuring the highest production qualities made Heal’s the market leader in the 1960s and early-1970s. As Barbara Brown explains: “Tom was Heal’s Fabrics… he was it. He was a lovely, lovely man and very supportive.”

ABOVE

TOM WORTHINGTON ON A JUDGING PANEL WITH CHRISTOPHER HEAL. ANTHONY HEAL STANDS BEHIND THEM

WARTIME PRODUCTION 1940

PRODUCT

“A dramatic rise in

consumer expenditure was

interrupted by the Second World War. Heal’s, like so many companies, turned

from the manufacture of goods for civilian consumption in peacetime,

to producing the military

equipment needed in a war

for Britain’s very survival,”

explains Imperial War Museum historian James Taylor. The workshops on

the upper floors were used

by machinists for making

parachutes for the Ministry

of Aircraft Production. By the summer of 1940, space was so tight that the operation spread beyond the workshops into the showrooms, with more sewing machines set up to cope with the demand.

HEAL'S AT WAR

1940's

"HEAL'S, LIKE SO MANY COMPANIES, TURNED FROM MANUFACTURE OF GOODS FOR CIVILIAN CONSUMPTION IN PEACETIME, TO PRODUCING THE MILITARY EQUIPMENT NEEDED FOR BRITAIN'S VERY SURVIVAL"

JAMES TAYLOR, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

LEFT

ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED BOOK ABOUT HEAL'S, DATING FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR, IT DEPIICTS A FOUR-POSTER BED ON TOP OF A TANK.

LUCIENNE DAY 1951

TEXTILE DESIGNER

"TOM ONLY PAID ME HALF THE USUAL FEE BECAUSE HE WAS CERTAIN THEY WOULDN'T SELL A YARD OF IT"

PEOPLE

Borne out of her husband, Robin Day’s, need for a modern fabric in keeping with his furniture, in 1951 Lucienne Day created Calyx for the Festival

of Britain. Initially, Tom

Worthington was only

lukewarm about the

pattern. Lucienne recalls:

“I had already designed

a couple of things for

Heal’s, so I took the design for Calyx along to them. Tom Worthington said he would produce it for me but would only pay me half the usual fee of 20 guineas because he was certain they wouldn’t sell a yard of it. Robin used it in his section and it was so popular that Heal’s entered it for an award in New York that year. Calyx won.” Over the next two decades, Lucienne went on to design more than 70 patterns for Heal’s.

ABOVE

LUCIENNE AND ROBIN DAY IN THEIR STUDIO

FESTIVAL

OF BRITAIN 1951

PRODUCT

Described by the Labour deputy leader, Herbert Morrison, as a “tonic for the nation”, the Festival of Britain set out to convey a sense of recovery and progress after the end of the Second World War. The 1951 festival was a landmark for British design, and – due to the vision and energy of its employees, together with the ‘You’ve never had it so good’ economy – it kickstarted a new boom period for Heal’s, which continued long into the 1960s.

CHRISTOPHER HEAL

FURNITURE DESIGNER & DIRECTOR 1934-1975

PEOPLE

Ambrose Heal’s youngest

son, Christopher (1911-1985),

joined the business in 1934,

after reading economics and

architecture at Cambridge

University, then studying

textile and furniture design

at the Central School of

Arts and Crafts. He began

designing furniture for Heal’s

and was in charge of the

drawing office – later known

as the Design Unit. In 1952,

he became design director,

a post he held until 1975. He

shared a passion for racing

cars with his brother Anthony.

BELOW

SKETCH OF A LIVING ROOM AND BEDROOM SET, WITH VENEERED STORAGE UNITS DESIGNED BY CHRISTOPHER HEAL

RIGHT

CHRISTOPHER HEAL, PHOTOGRAPHED BY NORMAN PARKINSON IN WINDOW NUMBER ONE, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

ANTHONY HEAL

FURNITURE DESIGNER,

DIRECTOR & CHAIRMAN

1929-1985

PEOPLE

Following in your father’s footsteps is no easy task, but when the man in question is design pioneer Ambrose Heal there’s a lot to live up to. But for his son Anthony (1907-1995) that was of little concern and, after serving a two-year apprenticeship at the Gordon Russell furniture workshops, he joined the family firm in 1929. Seven years later he became a director and in 1953 he sat as chairman. An advocate of modern design throughout his life, Anthony Heal was awarded the Royal Society of Arts Bicentenary Medal in 1965, for promoting art and design in British industry. His passion, aside from the store, was racing vintage sports cars. He owned several, racing in an Aston Martin at Le Mans in 1949, and even attended the annual meeting of the Vintage Sports Car Club in London a few days before he died, aged 88.

FABRICS

1965

PRODUCT

Cascade by Evelyn Redgrave, a freelance designer who became a design director at Heal’s Fabrics in the 1970s.

BARBARA BROWN

TEXTILE DESIGNER 1968

PEOPLE

“Barbara Brown has become the golden girl of Heal’s Fabrics designers” proclaimed the Heal’s Fabrics brochure in 1967. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Royal College of Art graduate produced many designs for Heal Fabrics. Describing her inspiration as “rather theoretical and mathematical”, Brown explains that her award winning geometric designs “were based on machines and architecture”. Creating optical illusions, she used mathematical formulae to suggest motion. Other tricks included employing strongly contrasting areas of light and shade to give a three-dimensional effect.

ABOVE

BARBARA BROWN SEATED ON CONSTRUCTION, 1968

SIR TERENCE CONRAN 1983

PEOPLE

Sir Terence Conran took over Heal’s in 1983, revamping the store and splitting the Tottenham Court Road premises to include other retail businesses in his Storehouse group. The first owner not to have been a member of the Heal family, Conran had harboured a fondness for the store since childhood: “I was lucky enough to have had a mother who was fascinated with design, I remember our birthday and Christmas presents came from Heal’s. I’ve still got a child’s wooden table and chairs – beautifully made furniture,” he recalls. Later, as a student, when Conran was establishing himself as a fabrics designer in the early 1950s, he was a regular visitor to the offices: “I was always taking my portfolio to Heal’s, trying to get them to give me a job. It was the place to sell textiles.”

HEAL'S CEO 1983-1990

HEAL'S RELAUNCH

POSTER

1984

MARKETING

This poster, by Helen Senior at the Design Group, was based on the original 1928 poster by R.P. Gossop. Senior remembers discovering it “lurking in the corner of a cupboard in the Heal’s building; home to the archive that had been lovingly looked after by Robin Hartley from the bedding department”. It shows the relaunch of the Tottenham Court Road premises after Sir Terence Conran purchased Heal’s, and encompasses Conran’s many different retail enterprises. The extensive Heal’s archive

is now held by the V&A.

ANDREA WARDEN

PEOPLE

When Andrea Warden became chief executive of Heal’s, it was to combine two of her lifetime passions: home interiors and retail. “There was a shopkeeper in me from an early age,” she says. “As a child I was always setting up shop at the bottom of the drive and trying to sell flowers from the garden or my old toys. I developed a real love of furniture, silver and ceramics from my mother. When I was a teenager, we went to antiques auctions together. I can still remember bidding for a piece of Heal’s furniture she loved; we didn’t get it.” Warden went on to

graduate in the history

of fine and decorative

arts.

A career in the homeware departments of British retail institutions Marks & Spencer, Harrods and Debenhams followed,making her well placed to take the helm at Heal’s.“For anyone who is passionate about interiors and furniture it is a dream job,” she explains.“Having been a Heal’s customer for a number of years, I felt that the rest of the home decor world was catching up. When I took over I wanted to push the business boundaries again. In reading the company history it became clear that previous heads of the business, in particular Ambrose Heal, had been innovators who embraced change. This convinced me that we needed to be adventurous in order to make Heal’s the destination store for modern interiors. Ultimately, inspirational design and quality are the key building blocks for Heal’s now andin the future.”

HEAL'S CEO 2004

ORLA KIELY

FOR HEAL'S

2008

PRODUCT

“Heal’s has such a strong history of design and that was what attracted me to working with the company,” explains Orla Kiely, who designed an exclusive range of furniture for the store in 2008.

“The collaboration was something that was quite new for me – although I am primarily a print designer, my background is fashion and textiles,” she says. “For a long time, I’d been feeling that I could cross over to interiors, and I’m lucky enough that it seems to work. I love the Rowan sideboard (below, left) with orange and white doors, which is very 1950s and 1960s – a great design period – and the Lusk sofa in pumpkin (below, right). They complement each other.”

HEAL'S ADVERTISING

2005

MARKETING

Advertising agency Draft

FCB was brought on board

to realise Andrea Warden’s

vision for the company:

“This series of adverts

encapsulates what a modern Heal’s should be. I wanted to come up with something that was not elitist, making the home

seem like a fun place. We

wanted to inject an element

of humour.” The campaign

played a key part in launching the Louis console table – one of the most popular pieces from the Heal’s Discovers 2005 collection. In 2006, the new advertising ethos was shown in the ‘We’ve had the builders in’ campaign to celebrate the refurbishment of the Tottenham Court Road store.