Who was Bruce James Talbert? (1838-1881)

Bruce Talbert was originally a carver who later trained as an architect. However his main focus was in the world of domestic decoration and design. In 1863 he won the competition to design the masthead for the Building News magazine. He worked from about 1861 at Skidmore's Art Manufactures Co. in Coventry making detailed drawings and designs for George Gilbert Scott's Albert Memorial and the Hereford Screen. 

Talbert was employed by Holland & Sons, Gillows, Marsh, Jones & Cribb of Leeds, Jackson & Graham. He was briefly a partner in Daniel Cottier's business and also knew Richard Norman Shaw and William Nesfield. In 1868 he designed an advertisement for James Lamb of Manchester. Talbert ran a very busy design studio and had William Batley as a student. He designed furniture and metalwork for Cox & Sons, wallpaper for Jeffrey & Co., textiles for Templetons, Barbour & Millar and Cowlishaw. 

He published Gothic Forms Applied to Furniture, Metalwork and Decoration for Domestic Purposes in 1868 and dedicated the work to George Edmund Street. In 1876 he published Examples of Ancient & Modern Furniture, Metal Work, Tapestries, decorations etc. Then posthumously in 1881 a third design book; Fashionable Furniture was published. Following his death The Cabinet Maker and Art Furnisher published a long-running series of 'Talbert Sketches' in his memory. 

Ref. Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design, From Pugin to Mackintosh, Appendix of Architects, Designers and Manufacturers, pages 280-298, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd, 1993.

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