Mapping the mahogany trade in the 18th and 19th centuries

In this lecture, Dr Adam Bowett charts the growth of the mahogany trade from its small beginnings in the early 18th century to its global peak in the late 19th. The trade was shaped both by British colonial policy and by Britain’s relations with the other European colonial powers, with successive wars against France and Spain being the most potent drivers of change. It was initially centred on the British Caribbean islands, especially Jamaica, but rapidly expanded to encompass Central America, Cuba and Hispaniola. In the process, furniture making in Britain was transformed, and in the 19th century mahogany was the world’s most commercially important high-class furniture wood. By the early 20th century the mahogany stocks of most Caribbean islands and large parts of Central America were dangerously depleted, and all three species are now protected under the CITES agreements.

Dr. Adam Bowett is an independent furniture historian and chairman of the Chippendale Society. Since 1992 he has also worked as an advisor on historic English furniture to public institutions and private clients in both Britain and North America, including The National Trust, English Heritage, Arts Council England, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Strawberry Hill Trust, the Wallace Collection and numerous British regional museums. He lectures widely and teaches furniture history at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He publishes work in both popular and academic journals and is the author of several books on English furniture and furniture-making.

All are welcome to YGS lectures. Admission is free to Members and students, and a suggested donation from non-Members of £5.

Image credit: Day and Son, Cutting and Trucking Mahogany in Honduras, Liverpool, England, 1850. [Chaloner and Fleming], 1850, The Mahogany Tree. Liverpool: Rockliffe & Son)