A Regency Mahogany Metamorphic Library Armchair by William Wilkinson, Circa 1815

William Wilkinson is recorded at 14 Ludgate Hill near St Paul's Cathedral from 1808, and appears to have specialised in tables and patent furniture. From c.1820 the firm changed its name to Wilkinson & Sons, and following his death sometime after 1830 the business was continued by his sons William and Charles under the name W & C Wilkinson. The firm continued trading throughout most of the 19th century, participating in the Great Exhibition in 1851 and the Arts and Crafts exhibition of 1890, and in 1892 entered into partnership with Charles Albert and Edward Hindley to form Hindley & Wilkinson.

A design for an almost identical metamorphic chair by the London cabinetmakers Morgan & Sanders was published as Plate 3 in Vol. VI of Rudolf Ackermann's Repository of Arts in July 1811 (illustrated Pauline Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough 1984, p. 60, pl. 29), and several firms produced similar models, including Gillows.