Earlywood: 'The Will and the Deed'

Publisher’s note: Welcome to Earlywood, a free excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog entry from 2020. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. Enjoy!

This 1949 column from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” sums up two opinions about woodworking that don’t get much discussion. The first is one that I talk about all the time with woodworkers over a beer: We have a supply-side problem. One of the reasons that people don’t buy nice, handmade furniture is because there isn’t a lot of it around. Or, as Hayward puts it:

“Any revival must ultimately depend upon the work of the individual, and the more men there are turning out furniture of good quality and design, the more people are going to be influenced in the right direction. It must be remembered that although, as a nation, we have lost immeasurably, as individuals we have gained.”