Basketware

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 29, 25 August 1892, Page 4

Basketware

A visit to Messrs Gurney Bros, basketware shop, in Upper Willisstreet, Wellington, is well worth making. The firm h*ve gone extensively into the basketware trade, and are now carrying on a business of very considerable magnitude. The shop is inconveniently crowded with specimens oi their manufacture, which, if displayed on a larger floorspace, would show to good advantage. The I " artistic furniture" on view is quite remarkable as having been made on the premises. It comprises chairs, settees, garden-seats, etc., ot beautiful design, some of the scroll work being very pretty, This class of furniture is constructed entirely of " pith cane." The outer shell of canes is used in ordinary chair- making/ the pith being utilised lor ornamental work. The best Melbourne workmen have been engaged in this department. Anionf these specimens we observe occasional tables, with Malacca trays and rattan stands, and there are baskets innumerable oi every conceivable design. Several perambulators are on view. In this line the firm do a very large wholesale business. Some firms which they supply have now ceased to; import perambulators. The rubber tires and and the handles are imported— the whole of the carriage outside these is made on the premises. In, one room wheels are fitted, and the gear set in going order ; in another the upholstery work is done. The osier, used in the basket-making, are obtained from Hobert and Timaru, those from the latter place cbmin'g from the plantation of Mr George Hedges. Nine hands are employed by the firms and it is evident the premises are too small tor a rapidly increasing business. A real novelty is about to be introduced by the firm in the shape of bamboo furniture. A specialist has been engaged 10 carry on this department, which promises to be a centre of attraction. Designs for lamp stands, fire screens and easels will be executed shortly, and there will then be on view a really interesting and attractive display of work, with which people here are not very generally familiar,