Antique Desks and Antique Office Furniture by Heals (Heal and Son) of London

Heal & Son (“Heals”) has a distinguished history in furniture manufacture and retailing since its establishment as a furniture store by John Harris in 1810. The firm was first located in Tottenham Court Road, London in 1811 and, by the middle of the 19th century, had begun to move from its original focus on beds to include bedroom furniture. By the 1880s its activities had expanded to include a new department for sitting room furniture. In 1893 Ambrose Heal joined the family business and for the next 60 years played an important role in building the reputation of the firm as a leading London retailer of good quality interior design and furniture. In the years before the First World War he helped promote an arts and crafts ethos in many of the products sold by the company.

Antiquedesks.net has a large archive of information and photos of all the antique desks and antique office furniture that we have sold over the past 20 years that we have been trading online. Extracts from this archive can be viewed on the Antique Desks Archive pages on our website.

In addition we also highlight some of the desks made by famous antique furniture makers that we have sourced and sold.  Examples of these can be viewed on our Famous Desk Makers Pages.

Examples of two immaculate pieces by Heals (Heal and Son) that we have recently sold are shown below.

48" (122cm) Victorian Mahogany Writing Table by Heal & Son

SOLD by Antiquedesks.net

48" (122cm) Mahogany Pedestal Desk c1900-1910 by Heal & Son

SOLD by Antiquedesks.net

ANTIQUE DESKS BY THE INDIANAPOLIS CABINET COMPANY – INDIANA - USA

This is an extract from our "Famous Antique Desks Makers" page on our website www.antiquedesks.net

Over the years we have been fortunate to find, restore and sell a number of examples from this fine manufacturer.  

Quite how some of the examples have found their way to the UK in the first place is often a story in itself - suffice to say that nearly all the examples we have sold have been shipped back to their new owners in the USA - quite a journey!

THE INDIANAPOLIS CABINET COMPANY – INDIANA - USA

Established in 1862 to make cabinets for the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company, this firm made desks, tables and cabinets until the mid-1890's, when the company president along with the company secretary, were indicted to appear before the US Supreme Court for aiding and abetting the president of the Indianapolis National Bank with misappropriating funds to the value of $375,000.

According to The New York Times (29th May 1894), the Indianapolis Cabinet Company officials were found guilty of "Wrecking the Indianapolis National Bank". With the guilty verdict being upheld after appeal in 1896, the company name was unsurprisingly changed in 1897 to the Indianapolis Cabinet Works

36" (91cm) wide Walnut Roll Top Desk by Indianapolis Cabinet Company c1890

SOLD by Antiquedesks.net

60" (153cm) Oak Twin Pedestal Partners Desk by Indianapolis Cabinet Company c1890

SOLD by Antiquedesks.net

A Unique Reference Resource for Antique Office Furniture and Antique Desks

www.antiquedesks.net has been in business for over 30 years and was one of the earliest UK antique dealers to embrace the internet when it launched Antiquedesks.net in 1996

Over that time we have amassed a unique archive of digital images of our stock of fine antique desks and other items of fine quality antique office furniture  (tables, chairs, bookcases, reading tables etc).

Given that each item that has been displayed  on our website has a gallery of at least 12 images showing all aspects and details it is not surprising that the archive totals over 10,000 individual digital images.

As www.antiquedesks.net continues its web journey towards being a premier source of specialist information on antique furniture we are gradually populating the website with many of these photos.  Many hundreds are already in place and can be used as a reference resource for various types of desk, woods, period styles and more.

To help visitors to our website we have recently added a Google search engine uniquely designed to search our own stock and website.  We hope that you will use this to research your needs and of course to contact us so that we can help you find your ideal antique desk or piece of antique office furniture. 

The Google search engine can be accessed at the top of the www.antiquedesks.net home page or by following the link below

www.antiquedesks.net