A stick-back chair is a chair whose back is formed from a series of slender sticks or spindles socketed directly into a solid wooden seat, rather than being built up from a joined frame. The legs are likewise fitted into holes bored through the underside of the seat. The construction is that of the Windsor chair family, and the term is often used for the simpler, more vernacular members of that tradition.
Stick-back chairs were made across Britain from the eighteenth century onwards, with important centres of production in the Thames Valley and the beech woods around High Wycombe, where the chair-making industry grew enormously in the nineteenth century. Typical forms include the comb-back, the hoop-back and the low-backed smoker's bow. Seats were usually of elm, chosen for its resistance to splitting, while legs and sticks were turned or shaved from ash, beech or yew. Welsh stick chairs, made by rural craftsmen with a characteristically bold and individual appearance, are a particularly prized group. Collectors look for a deep, well-shaped seat, a good dry patina, original sticks and signs of genuine age and use.
