About us

Glover Bros was established in 1899 in Shoreditch, London, by Thomas Glover Waine to serve the then flourishing upholstery trades. He was one of the Waine Bros whose family had run The House of Waine, a large and long established (1848) manufacturing and retail shop selling furniture and upholstery, carpets and drapery and everything for the home. This superior emporium was at Newington Butts, near the Elephant & Castle, south of the river while Glover Bros was in the heart of the East End, then in its heyday with almost every dwelling involved in cabinet making, upholstery or lace making.

Waine’s sister Catherine looked like the Old Queen and dispensed soup to the poor, of which there were many, every Wednesday.
Glover Bros was the upholstery supplies arm of the of the business. Its Pocket Price List, known as the upholsterer's bible, listed some 130 items from Axminster carpets to varnishes, Utrecht Velvets to rubber nosings, all-wool blankets to gimp pins (gimp pins have stayed the course).

The Blitz
By 1936, 30,000 of these copyright lists were being distributed to upholsterers every spring and autumn . The brief company history we have paints a delightful picture of Victorian values of exemplary service and honest toil – nothing’s changed there then – till the Blitz rather put an end to the House of Waine.

After the war Glover Bros operated from various addresses under reduced circumstances, till the Redchurch Street premises closed and the business reopened in Sidmouth, Devon by a descendant, from where it moved to Somerset in 1985. The present owners, Val and Des Fanning took over in 1989 and the company was incorporated in 2001, 102 years after it was first founded.

Today
After some years in a (disused) broiler shed near Taunton, the company now inhabits purpose built premises that are capacious, light and airy – especially with the loading doors open.

We no longer stock Axminster carpet, but vinyl, the new leather cloth so bravely and proudly introduced by William Waine in 1857, is still a popular line.

Active customers are also sent our regular Snips newsletter which keeps them in touch with new lines, and bad jokes.

Waine’s workshop about 1900 –

and today