Thomas Chippendale Kensington. Chippendale married Elizabeth Davis at Fulham Parish Church on 5 August 1777. He fathered three more children. In 1779 Chippendale moved to Hoxton where he died of tuberculosis and was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 16 November 1779. There is a statue and memorial plaque dedicated to Chippendale outside The Old Grammar School Gallery in Manor Square, in his home town of Otley, near Leeds, Yorkshire. There is a full-size sculpted figure of Thomas Chippendale on the façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. After working as a journeyman cabinet maker in London, in 1754, he became the
Metamorphic library steps ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The topmost shelves were difficult to reach, so movable library steps or library stairs were created as a form of domestic furniture. During the second half of the 18th century a succession of talented German-born cabinet-makers passed through the French courts. Jean-François Oeben, Jean-Henri Riesener and David Roentgen had successively introduced the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI to a wide range of finely made and exquisitely finished mechanical furniture. The ingenuity of these cabinet-makers, especially David Roentgen who became master cabinet-maker to Marie Antoinette, led to a fascination for "meubles à surprises" ('surprise furniture').