This robust form of caned and desk-fitted bergere or 'Library Reading Chair', with pillared supports in the French antique manner, was invented by Messrs. Morgan and Saunders of The Strand and praised for its comfort in Rudolph Ackermann's The Repository of Arts, September 1810 (pl. 19). This chair is reputed to have belonged to Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (d. 1839), who acted as captain of the fleet and was on Victory with Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Hardy, according to a family tradition, is supposed to have had this chair with him on board H.M.S. Victory during Trafalgar in 1805.