The Earl of Couch: Canada’s beloved chesterfield
- The fourth Earl of Chesterfield lent his name to Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut, first named around 1749 after being visited by a European in 1612.
- The Chesterfield sofa was originally commissioned by the same Earl for Chesterfield House, designed by Howland & Sons to provide comfortable seating for guests.
- The term "Chesterfield" for this type of sofa, characterized by deep button tufting, rolled arms, and leather upholstery, emerged in the mid-19th century and became a symbol of British furniture elegance.
- In Canada, "Chesterfield" was widely used to refer to any sofa during the early 20th century, peaking in popularity in the 1970s before declining, with many younger Canadians no longer associating the term specifically with the classic furniture style.
The fourth Earl of Chesterfield left his mark on what would become Canada.
Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut, just south of the Arctic Circle, was first visited by a European in 1612 and was named for Philip Dormer (Stanhope), said Earl of Chesterfield, around 1749, according to the hamlet’s website.
British furniture monger Fleming Howland adds the same earl, commissioned what was then called Howland & Sons to create the Chesterfield sofa for Chesterfield House, so his guests would have somewhere comfortable to sit.
“The word itself, however, did not appear until (the) mid-19th century and was used to describe an upholstered sofa with arms the same height as the back.
“An authentic Chesterfield chair or sofa is more than a piece of furniture,” a post on the company’s website continues. “It’s a direct connection to an age when British furniture manufacturing and design were the envy of the world. The sofa gained popularity due to its timeless design, featuring deep button tufting, rolled arms, and luxurious leather upholstery, making it a symbol of sophistication, opulence, and comfort.”
This may not conjure the Chesterfields of your youth. Canadians increasingly used the word Chesterfield to refer to a sofa or couch of any description — or tuft level — in the early 20th century, lexicographer Katherine Barber claimed in a 2020 blog.
The word’s use seemed to peak in Canada in the 1970s, she wrote, with fewer than one in 10 Toronto 20-somethings associating Chesterfield with furniture at all by the time Harry met Sally.
“I grew up calling this piece of furniture a Chesterfield, but shifted to “sofa,” sometime in the eighties,” she wrote.
There are a dozen or more other places and things from towns and villages to counties and state forests named Chesterfield. It’s the eighth of 11 “other uses” for the word listed in a Wikipedia article, below the Chesterfield coat, cigarette, typeface and Chesterfield FC, and ahead of English pop band The Chesterfields and the three Royal Navy ships our word for sofa has graced.
“HMS Couch” doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?