Sir Edward Hales is known to have employed the Chippendale firm from 1776 (possibly earlier) until 1783 when he ran out of funds. Lavish furniture was delivered for the vast mansion Hales Place that he built near Canterbury, with a more modest few pieces for his London house at 7 Albemarle Street. Vouchers and four bills survive: April, 1776–November 1780, £564.18s.7d (including three years interest of £72.18s); February- December 1781, £495.8s.4d; March 1782-August 1784, £38; October 1782-September 1783, £366.4s.7d. Sir Edward was notoriously bad at paying. To date, none of this furniture has been identified.

The contents of Hales Place were sold by Phillips and Son of New Bond Street in 1880 - extensive articles describing the sale and the results were publised in The Kentish Gazette  on  the 10th and  17th August 1880. Although the description are typically tantalisingly vague, there is a possibility that these chairs might be identifiable within the lots described.

In his Tour through the Isle of Thanet of 1793, Zechariah Cozens describes Hales Place as 'more fit for the residence of a monarch than for a simple country gentleman'.

Lanto Synge, Mallett Millennium, p. 116, fig. 125 (a pair from the same set illustrated)