Scott Chair

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA (1880-1960), the architect, was tasked with creating the new House of Commons Chamber and surrounding offices after the bombings of the Second World War.

This is a typical example of a chair designed by Scott. A number of these chairs were paid for by gifts from the Commonwealth including North Borneo, Tanganyika, Singapore and the State of Guernsey and have a gothic style inscription on the back naming the country. The chairs were made in 1950 by Waring and Gillow, the same company that made some of the original furniture for the New Palace of Westminster in the 1840s. The chairs are upholstered in a wool fabric, Replin, made by British Repin Ltd in their factory in Ayr, Scotland. This was a new type of material developed and first produced in 1948 with the manufacturers claiming it to be “very hard wearing” and “almost completely moth-and fireproof”.