HIGH WYCOMBE’S FURNITURE INDUSTRY: FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE ‘80S
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54652/rsf.2004.v34.i1.202Keywords:
furniture, demography, politics, social designAbstract
UDK 674.23(420)
High Wycombe, a city located in the south-west of England, was the flagship of the furniture industry for the whole of the British Kingdom during the 19th century. Today, with the introduction of new materials and trends that would make furniture desirable, as well as the cost of cheap labor in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, this industrial sector has become a thing of the past. Today, only a few companies located in this city represent this sector.
This paper documents the evolution of the High Wycombe furniture industry over time and reveals what caused the decline in the chair manufacturing sector. It also presents the impact of industrialization on the development of the furniture industry, historically traces the rise and fall of this sector at the local level, and shows what status this industry had in the seventies.
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