Thomas Shearer Thomas Shearer Thomas Shearer was an 18th-century English furniture designer and cabinet-maker. Shearer was a craftsman and the author of most of the plates in "The Cabinet Maker's London Book of Prices and Designs of Cabinet Work", issued in 1788 "for the London Society of Cabinet Makers." The majority of these plates were republished separately as Designs for Household Furniture. They exhibit their author as a man with an eye at once for simplicity of design and delicacy of proportion. Indeed, some of his pieces possess a dainty and slender elegance which has never been surpassed in the history of
John McLean (furniture maker) as eight different variations of name spellings have been recorded, the problem arising because many people in those days were illiterate and names were written phonetically at the whim of whoever was writing the name at the time. The first appearance of the name 'McLean' can be found on the south side of Little Newport Street, Leicester Square in June 1770, where a "Jn. McLean" rented a "Ho & workshops" until 1783. A trade card for the Newport Street Address advertises that he was a "Cabinet, Chair Maker and Upholder". The rent of the Little Newport premises was valued at