The Georgian Group has an impressive reference library at 6 Fitzroy Square, comprising around 4000 books and journals on a range of relevant subjects including architectural history, topography, garden history, monographs, pattern books and architectural details such as ironwork and brickwork. Most relate to the British Isles although European and British Colonial architecture is also covered. Around a quarter of the collection is antiquarian, with rare volumes including early editions of Vitruvius Britannicus.  

The library is open free (on a non-lending basis) to Georgian Group members, who may visit during business hours. (It is always advisable to phone ahead as the library is sometimes used for meetings). A searchable online catalogue of the library is now available, exclusively to members, via the members’ area of this site. Non-members may visit the library by appointment and on payment of a fee. For full terms and conditions please see Related Links on the right, where you can also find an index of The Georgian Group Journal.

We are always grateful for donations of books on relevant subjects, and for the gift or loan of Georgian or reproduction bookcases.

For further information please contact the Librarian, Michael Bidnell, either by e-mail or by telephoning 020 7529 8928.

Items on loan under HM Government acceptance in lieu or conditional exemption schemes: works available to view at 6 Fitzroy Square. These items may be viewed without appointment during normal business hours. Further information: Michael Bidnell 020 7529 8928.

George Simson bureau bookcase, 1790s

Bureau bookcase labelled 'George Simson/Upholder Cabinet Maker and Undertaker/ No 19/ South side of St Paul's Church Yard London.’

St Paul’s Church Yard, to the south of St Paul’s Cathedral, was an important centre for making furniture in London. Its most famous cabinet makers were perhaps John Coxed & Thomas Woster, who traded there between 1700 and 1736, and later George Simson, who was active from about 1780 until 1839. In 1793 Simson subscribed to Sheraton's Drawing Book and was also mentioned in Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary (1803). The houses he furnished included Broadlands, Hampshire for the 2nd Lord Palmerston and Gorhambury House, Herts, for the 1st Earl of Verulam. He also supplied cabinets for clocks and automata displayed in Weeks' Museum in Tichbourne Street in the early 1800s. Simson placed printed labels inside his furniture, a practice shared by cabinetmakers and upholsterers in St Paul’s Church Yard but, for some reason, seldom elsewhere.

This bookcase is in good, largely unaltered condition and is a very good example of fashionable furniture being produced in London in the 1790s, when England and its capital city produced some of the world’s finest furniture and cabinetmakers.

Two of Sir Francis Burdett's Hunters held by a groom, waiting with three Foxhounds to join the Hunt

Oil painting by John Ferneley Sr, 1817. Available to view during August and the first week of September.