These chairs were designed by Pugin and sixteen were made in John Webb's workshops, eight for each table, for the official opening of the House of Lords in April 1847.

The X-frame, with suspended seats, was based on folding chairs used by persons of high rank throughout the middle ages and into the seventeenth century. Thirty-six more were made by Holland and Sons for the State dining room at the Speakers Official Residence in 1859, and many of these can be seen in the Royal Gallery.