The playwright Edward Knoblock was one of the earliest actual collectors of Regency furniture. He owned several pieces that had belonged to Thomas Hope and which were sold from his country house, The Deepdene, in 1917. After the First World War Knoblock bought Beach House, Worthing, which he furnished with what are now some of the best known pieces of Regency furniture, including the bookcase from The Deepdene that is now in the Bowes Museum, Co.Durham. Financial problems forced him to sell Beach House only seven years later. His subsequent flat at 11 Montague Place in London was photographed in 1931 and two of these photographs are illustrated in F.Collard, Regency Furniture, Woodbridge, 1985, pp.265-6. The label on the reverse of this cabinet refers to another flat in Ashley Place, S.W.1