Lucian Ercolani

Who was Lucian Ercolani?

Lucian Randolph Ercolani, furniture designer, was born in St Angelo, Tuscany, Italy. His father, Abdon Ercolani, a pictureframe maker, migrated to London, England, in search of work, and in 1898 was joined by his family. Lucian Ercolani attended a Salvation Army school in London, which he left in 1902, aged 14, to take up a job as a Salvation Army messenger boy. Encouraged by his parents to continue his education, Ercolani enrolled for night school at Shoreditch Technical Institute, where he studied drawing, design, and the theory and construction of furniture. In the early 1900s, Shoreditch was a thriving centre of furniture-making.

By 1906, Ercolani was working in the Salvation Army joinery department, producing staircases and handrails. In 1910, Frederick Parker invited him to join his firm, which made furniture at workshops in High Wycombe, the 'furniture capital' of England. In 1912, Ercolani took up a part-time appointment at High Wycombe Technical School, teaching furniture design to evening classes which were attended by High Wycombe’s furniture makers. It was here that he met Edward Gomme, son of a High Wycombe chair-maker. At the outbreak of World War I, Ercolani joined E Gomme Ltd., chair-makers. As Ercolani recorded in his biography: “At Gomme’s … it seemed to me … that the simple chair was the outcome of very good and precise workmanship.”