Roger Harold Metford Warner (3 May 1913 – 13 May 2008) was an antiques dealer and collector in

Burford Burford () is a town on the River Windrush, in the Cotswold hills, in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England. It is often referred to as the 'gateway' to the Cotswolds. Burford is located west of Oxford and southeast of Chelte ...

, Oxfordshire.

Early life

Roger Harold Metford Warner was born in

Settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an indie rock band from Pennsylvania * ''S ...

, then in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, the son of Harold Metford Warner and Marjorie Barrett Sowerby. His engineer father died before Warner was born. One of his grandfathers, Metford Warner, owned Jeffrey and Company the wallpaper manufacturers who printed

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

papers. He was educated at

Leighton Park School Leighton Park School is a co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Reading in South East England. The school's ethos is closely tied to the Quaker values, having been founded as a Quaker School in 1890. The school's e ...

Career

In 1936 Warner founded Roger Warner Antique Dealers in Burford, Oxfordshire, with the help of his mother, Marjorie. He was particularly keen on buying stock that was of little interest to other dealers. This included pieces of

vernacular furniture A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

used in servants' rooms and country house offices, and obsolete agricultural tools. Many of these items came on to the market as part of the sale and demolition of country houses common just before and after the Second World War. Warner also developed a knowledge of textiles, his interest in fabrics encompassed worsteds and chintzes. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Warner closed his shop. In 1946 he joined a Quaker Relief Team in Holland as their leader helping to rehabilitate Dutch citizens after the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

. Warner reopened the shop in 1947 and Lawrence Darton, the book historian, joined the business. However, Warner's antiquarian book dealing was short lived as he decided that books took too long to handle. As a leading figure in the antiques world, Warner sold to multiple prominent museums including the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

Temple Newsam Temple Newsam (historically Temple Newsham), () is a Tudor- Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. The estate lends its name to the Temple Newsam ward of Leeds City Council, in which i ...

in Leeds and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He also had many private clients who included

Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov ; 16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, filmmaker and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits ...

Bruce Chatwin Charles Bruce Chatwin (13 May 194018 January 1989) was an English travel writer, novelist and journalist. His first book, '' In Patagonia'' (1977), established Chatwin as a travel writer, although he considered himself instead a storyteller, ...

and members of the British royal family such as

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

. Another high-profile customer was

Charles Paget Wade Charles Paget Wade (1883–28 June 1956) was an English architect, artist-craftsman and poet of Afro-Caribbean descent; today he is perhaps best remembered for the eclectic collection he amassed during his life, a collection which can be seen ...

Snowshill Manor Snowshill Manor is a National Trust property located in the village of Snowshill, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. It is a sixteenth-century country house, best known for its twentieth-century owner, Charles Paget Wade, an eccentric who amasse ...

. Many items to be seen in the house today were bought from Roger Warner Antique Dealers. Warner often appeared on the antiques quiz show '

Going for a Song ''Going for a Song'' is a British game show that originally aired on BBC1 from 6 October 1965 to 16 October 1977 and hosted by Max Robertson, with Arthur Negus appearing as the resident expert and antique valuer. It was revived on the same cha ...

' on the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s, along with fellow antiques expert

Arthur Negus Arthur George Negus, OBE (1903–1985) was a British television personality and antiques expert, specialising in furniture. Biography Negus was born in Reading, Berkshire, to Amy Julia Worsley and father Arthur George Negus Sr, a cabinet mak ...

. In 1985 after nearly 50 years in business, Warner retired. The Regional Furniture Society published his autobiography 'Roger Warner, Memoirs of a Twentieth Century Antique Dealer' as their journal in 2003. After his death at the age of 98 in 2008 his extensive antique collection was sold, with much press coverage, over four days at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...

South Kensington and Brightwells in Leominster, grossing over £2,000,000.

Personal life

Warner married Ruth Ernestine Hurcombe, the South African botanist in 1949. They had a son and two daughters. One daughter is the British director of theatre and opera

Deborah Warner Deborah Warner (born 12 May 1959) is a British director of theatre and opera, known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin Britten and Henrik Ibsen. Early life Warner was born in Oxfordshire, England, ...

. Warner was a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

and, during the Second World War, a conscientious objector.

References

External links

Papers of Roger Warner Antique Dealers
at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warner, Roger Harold Metford 1913 births 2008 deaths Antiques dealers British Quakers