Walter George and Ernest Thornton-Smith established an antique dealership and interior decorating business in c.1906, and were trading at Soho Square in London by 1907. The firm was well-known as an interior decorator in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the early 1920s employed the famous interior decorators Syrie Maugham (1879-1955) and John Fowler (1906-1977). Walter Thornton-Smith purchased the site of Shoppenhangers Manor, Maidenhead, Berkshire in 1914 and during 1914-1918 he rebuilt the manor in 16th century style, re-using various architectural and interior decorations from a number of 16th and 17th century houses. Shoppenhangers Manor was eventually demolished in 2007 following its sale to the Esso Petroleum Company in 1965 and conversion to an hotel. Walter Thornton-Smith died in 1963.
(August 2020) - Martin Everard tells us that his mother, Barbara Everard (1910-1990), (then Barbara Beard), trained at Thornton-Smiths from 1936 to 1938, and that she learned how to paint whilst at the business, as well as formal training at Ealing School of Art; Barbara became one of the world’s foremost botanical artists. Martin tells us that 'in her memoirs, ‘Call Them the Happy Years’, transcribed and edited by Martin (published 2011), she writes: Then, Daddy thought it was time I had a job. He went to some old friends of his, Ernest and Walter Thornton-Smith, who had a faked-antique business in Soho Square and I got a job in the Studio.’
Martin also tells us that his grandfather and his brothers acquired several pieces of antique furniture from Thornton-Smith, and that Ernest Thornton-Smith bought the Beard Family home, The Manor, Telscombe, Sussex.
