Regency Child's Correction Chair, c. 1830

Regency beech child's correction chair, the caned seat and back raised on tall sabre legs joined by numerous stretchers.

England c. 1830
14" wide x 13-" deep x 38" high

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The original time-out chair, chairs of this type are known by many names: discipline chairs, punishment chairs and correction chairs among them. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London refers to them as 'deportment chairs' or 'Astley Cooper Chairs'. Their website explains Sir Astley Preston Coooper (1768-1841) was a surgeon and anatomist who invented the chair to correct faulty posture in children.

When children were naughty, confinement to one of these was considered good punishment. The high seat kept the young convict's feet off the floor while the shallow back inflicted rigid posture on a precarious perch. Good posture was deemed very important for both medical reasons and for discipline.

The turned stretcher below the seat on this example is worn smooth from countless penitents' clinging feet. (See detail photo.) At one time there was another stretcher (just below the ring-turnings) that is long lost, doubtless snapped off by a falling truant.

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