Ambrose Heal

Who was Ambrose Heal?

Sir Ambrose Heal was an English furniture designer, and businessman in the first half of the 20th century.

Heal was the great-grandson of John Harris Heal, the founder of the Heals furniture manufacturing and retail business. He attended Marlborough College and the Slade School of Fine Art before a two-year apprenticeship to cabinetmakers Collier and Plucknett in Warwick followed by six months working for Graham and Biddle, furnishers, of Oxford Street.

In 1893 he joined Heal & Son, working in the bedding factory, but in the mid-1890s he began designing simple, sturdy furniture, often in plain oak. Although initially his designs were not popular with sales staff, who called them "prison furniture", they found a place at exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society and soon became so successful that prejudices were overcome. He exhibited special pieces at Arts and Crafts exhibitions for more than thirty years but more significant was his contribution to making simpler, well-designed, well-made furniture available to a broader middle-class public. Undoubtedly influenced by the teachings of Ruskin and William Morris, he was however more forward looking and embraced the use of machinery where appropriate. His simple, no frills designs, created around 1905, appealed particularly to the inhabitants of the new Garden Cities and Suburbs. He had already patented a unit furniture system in 1915 when he became a founding member of the Design and Industries Association, which campaigned for "Fitness for Purpose" in industrial production.