I’ve just received the following email from Ann Dorsett at the Carmarthen Museum. Can anyone add to this? In case you missed my previous post, the dresser will be ariving here at Ty Jarman tomorrow morning. Anyone who would like to “welcome it home” is very welcome,
How lovely that one of these dressers is coming home to the area. I am afraid that I have very little information about the maker or makers of these dressers. What little I have comes from an article by Bill Cotton on the subject of the Cilycwm dresser for Carmarthenshire Life published in August 2003. His interest was sparked by the sale of a dresser at the Dukes Dorchester salerooms in 2003. It was catalogued as made by the Williams family of Cilycwm. Subsequent research by Bill Cotton revealed that:
- The Williams family were a family of carpenters who worked at the Drovers Arms – which is now a private house.
- Bill Cotton came across a dresser from Plasnewydd, but which had been taken to east Gloucestershire, and was owned by members of the Jones family. Their family tradition had it that their dresser was made by the Rees family between 1820 and 1840.
- There is apparently a Cilycwm dresser with lobes in The Brecknockshire Museum.
- The Williams family were at Cilcywm between 1841 and 1861 (Census returns)
- However there were other furniture makers and cabinet makers in the area.
The imposing dresser at Carmarthenshire County Museum is likely to be an early example, having been made in the third quarter of the 18th century.
