| AdminHistory | John L Corlyon's background was in marine engineering but furniture making had always been his hobby. He established his own business in 1973 as a one man operation producing hand made furniture from a garden shed at his home in Burton Pidsea. Eighteen months later he purchased land at Burstwick where a workshop was built, which by 1980 had been replaced by a new purpose built workshop and offices.
John L Corlyon (Furnture) Ltd manufactured individually designed, custom made, high quality furniture. One of its earliest commissions was from the Department of the Environment to make a reproduction of a Chippendale mahogany desk in Downing Street for the White House. During the 1980s the recession impacted on the company and orders started to fall off. Consequently John L Corlyon sought to build up new clients in the Middle East. This eventually led to the award of contracts to furnish two palaces in Abu Dhabi and Doha. The company came to specialise in Islamic design. One of the features of the work of the company was also its use of computer aided design and cutting.
Other important commissions were for a 32 leaf dining table for BP Exploration for which the company won the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers' Guildmark Award, the UK furniture industry's most prestigious award. Another important contract for the company was for the fitting out of three jet aircraft for the Saudi royal family. One of the company's important local commissions was for Hull City Council for a freeman casket for Nelson Mandela.
Clients of John L Corlyon included BP Exploration Ltd, The Tower of London, Victoria and Albert Museum, St Martin's Property Corporation, British Aerospace PLC, NATO, the British Government Public Service Agency, the Ministry of Defence, Trafalgar House PLC and BP Chemicals Ltd. Clients in the Gulf States included His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, His Majesty King Fahad Bin Abdulaziz Al Suad of Saudi Arabia, His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayyan of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, His Highness Sheikh Hamed Bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar, His Excellency Dr Manaa Saeed Al-Otaiba of United Arab Emirates.
The firm ceased trading in 1996, its client base having been adversely affected by the 1991 Gulf War. |