A bored child slipping beneath the table at lunchtime might look around at socks and shoes, stray crusts and dropped napkins. Imagine their delight, then, at spotting a mouse carved straight into the table leg. A friendly face invites little hands to run a finger along a curling tail, to place a thumb into the cup of the two round ears. Keep hunting and – look! – there’s another running up the side of a chair. Hickory dickory dock: there’s another scuttling on to the bread board.
These mice are the hallmark of Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson, a renowned British craftsman from Yorkshire who took over his family carpentry business and landed his first major commission, furnishing Ampleforth Abbey, in the early 1920s. It was at this time, while making ecclesiastical pews, screens and pulpits that one of his apprentices remarked he was ‘as poor as a church mouse’. It gave Thompson an idea and that afternoon he carved his first mouse into the wood, in what was to become his signature.
After the abbey was completed, Thompson went on to furnish several more Yorkshire churches, as well as Ampleforth’s library and many of the school’s boarding houses. His mice followed him, and soon he’d acquired the nickname of Mousey or Mouseman. Inspired by the Medieval carvings in Ripon Cathedral, Mousey turned against the industrialisation of his age. Instead, he aligned himself with the Arts & Crafts movement, championing the handmade and showcasing skilled craftsmanship. His designs in British oak feature pegged joints and smooth rippling surfaces carved with a traditional woodworker’s adze.
Much of this finds relevance today. In an age of cheap mass production, there’s a renewed appeal in craft. His workshop in Kilburn, Yorkshire – at its peak employing 30 craftsmen – can be seen in the 1948 film Mousey Thompson: the Craftsman of Kilburn. Made by Betty and Cyril Ramsden and now in the care of the Yorkshire Film Archive, it shows young men making tables and whittling wood; take away the smoking pipes and you might looking at the contemporary workshop of Alfred Newall or David Linley.
In his time, Mousey proclaimed that he was making ‘the antiques of the future’. Made to endure and to pass down the generations, the original pieces have now become collectable. One complete family collection – commissioned as a wedding present in 1955 – is due to be auctioned this month at Bourne End Auction Rooms. There are bookshelves, honest and solid; a lattice-backed rocking chair just waiting to be rocked; a full dining set with table and chairs. Mixing the pious with the playful, this collection is just crying out for a new generation to play at counting the friendly church mice.
Visit Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen, which continues Mouseman’s legacy in North Yorkshire. Visit robertthompsons.co.uk
The JW Anderson × Mouseman collection is available at JW ANDERSON PIMLICO, 105-107, Pimlico Rd, London SW1W 8PH
