J Foot & Son Ltd Patent Adjustable Rest Chair

Posted on 15 Jan, 2023

The claims for Foot’s Patent Rest Chair in their 1912 advertorial were life changing.  The sweeping assertions as to the benefit of just 15 minutes a day sitting in their extraordinary adjustable chair were peppered with ‘scientific' proof and ‘medical' advice that is a mixture of the outrageous and the strangely obvious!

Who knew that 15 minutes a day sitting in the Foot Patent Rest-chair, besides providing the acme of luxury, would cure nerve troubles, brain fag and general slackness? Or that when your round of social duties has exhausted your store of energy, 15 minutes in the adjustable chair will allow the blood to flow to the depleted centre bringing back natural exhilaration, vigour and a youthful appearance and good looks.  Better still, the professional man will find his after dinner dyspepsia cured and his virility restored.  

And if this wasn’t enough to make you rush out and buy one from their well known New Bond Street premises, they assured the Edwardian public that, because of it’s unique ‘fit-the-back' rest,  their rheumatism, nervous disorder, lung affection, bladder or kidney trouble would become 'but a nightmare of the past'    

What would the Advertising Standards Authority of today make of these barefaced claims? Where would they start?!  However, they would not object to the advertorial headline stating that 'distinguished physicians declare that few people rest properly' during the day.  Nor would they object to the fact that this extraordinary chair provides comfort and luxury and is a beautiful piece of British craftsmanship.

We have loved these extraordinary adjustable chairs by Messrs J Foot and Son Ltd for many years and buy and restore  them whenever we are lucky enough to come across one.  They are increasingly rare and we have never seen one as perfect as this.  It is truly a museum piece with all the additional features illustrated but with it’s own working light fitting.  It has been meticulously restored and reupholstered in leather.  It will certainly restore it’s new owner to perfect harmony.

Tags: J Foot & Son Ltd