Robert (Mousey) Thompson
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Robert (Mousey) Thompson (7 May 1876 – 8 December 1955) was a British furniture maker. He lived in Kilburn, North Yorkshire, where he set up a business manufacturing oak furniture, which featured a carved mouse on almost every piece. It is claimed that the mouse trademark came about accidentally in 1919 following a conversation about "being as poor as a church mouse", which took place between Thompson and one of his colleagues during the carving of a cornice for a screen. This chance remark led to him carving a mouse and this remained part of his work from this point onwards.
He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement which was a rebuff to the automation and mechanisation of a craftmans work, that was beginning in the late 19th Century - the birth of mass production. Other people who were key to this include John Ruskin, William Morris & Thomas Carlyle. More specific to furniture making in this genre and era include Stanley Webb Davies of Windermere.
The workshop, now being run by his descendants, includes a showroom and visitors' centre, and is located beside the Parish Church, which contains "Mouseman" pews, fittings and other furniture. The company is now known as "Robert Thompson's Craftsmen Ltd - The Mouseman of Kilburn"
