ROBERT SIMMS, a Master Cabinetmaker: his life and work in England and Williamsburg, Virginia

Robert Simms was a master carpenter who began life in pre-World War I England in a village near Brighton, Sussex. In his own narrative he describes life between the wars and his rise in the trade from apprentice to journeyman woodworker and his trials and tribulations as an experienced tradesman and employee on a grand estate, Preston Manor. Simms was recruited by Colonial Williamsburg in 1957 and worked there for twenty years, maintaining and restoring the Foundation's growing collection of furniture and other art objects. His frank and colorful memoir gives one an unvarnished view of his class conscious world, and the extreme distance between the working classes and the gentry. His life in Virginia was marked by his generous sharing of his craft knowledge with many younger men and women who were eagerly entering the historic preservation field.