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 Chelt ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

Early life

Roger Harold Metford Warner was born in

Settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an in ...

, then in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, 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 an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

papers. He was educated at

Leighton Park School Leighton Park School is a co-educational Private schools in the United Kingdom, private school for both day and boarding pupils in Reading, Berkshire, Reading in South East England. The school's ethos is closely tied to the Quaker values, having ...

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 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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

. 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 (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

Temple Newsam Temple Newsam (historically Temple Newsham), is a Tudor- Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. The house is a Grade I listed building, one of nine Leeds Museums and Galleries sites and ...

in Leeds and the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

in Oxford. He also had many private clients who included

Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received #Awa ...

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 storytelling, s ...

and members of the

British royal family The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...

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. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II. ...

. Another high-profile customer was

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

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 amass ...

. 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 31 March 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. 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 (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

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, and for her collaborations with Irish actress Fiona ...

. Warner was a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

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

References

External links

Papers of Roger Warner Antique Dealers
at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

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