Milner

Isaac Milner’s Chair

Isaac Milner was an imposing figure both intellectually and physically. One contemporary described him as ‘the most enormous man it was ever my fate to see in a drawing room’. Another described him as a ‘glutton’.

This chair was specially constructed to take Milner’s enormous weight. It normally resides in the long hall of the President’s Lodge. We are grateful to Lord and Lady Eatwell for loaning it for display during the Exhibition.

During his tenure as president Milner reputedly ordered that all tankards and punch bowls be melted down to make a tea service and coffee urn for the President’s Lodge. For all his much vaunted opposition to alcohol, Milner was an opium addict. Letters to Wilberforce record his advocacy of the drug.