Commode painted oak, walnut or fruitwoods, with carved decoration, typical of French provincial furniture. In the English-speaking world, "commode" passed into cabinet-makers' parlance in London by the mid-eighteenth century to describe chests of drawers with gracefully curved fronts, and sometimes with shaped sides as well, perceived as being in the "French" taste. Thomas Chippendale employed the term "French Commode Tables" to describe designs in "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Director" (1753), and Ince and Mayhew illustrated a "Commode Chest of drawers", plate xliii, in their "Universal System of Household Furniture", 1759–62. John Gloag notes that "Commode" expanded to describe any piece of
Peter McLean (cabinet maker) regular commercial telephone service in Australia. It linked the head office in Elizabeth Street with their Spencer Street store — about 1.2 km away. Peter McLean (cabinet maker) Peter McLean, a cabinet maker of Dumfries, Scotland, arrived in Port Phillip, Australia in February 1853 with his family during the gold rush. He crafted one of the finest and most remarkable examples of Victorian colonial cabinetmaking, no doubt with the post gold rush market in mind. Described as a tour de force of precision joinery, wooden inlay and detailed, high-relief carving, McLean's pièce de résistance was a remarkable sideboard, or 'buffet',