The origin of the Windsor style may never be completely pinpointed. Undoubtedly it rests somewhere between the peg-leg primitive stools and benches of Europe and the Royal families of the time. This has allowed us to embrace the more charming anecdotal accounts relative to the Windsor beginning.
It seems that King George I, or II, or III was out on the royal estates fox hunting or riding or doing whatever it is that kings do. Having been overtaken by fatigue, nightfall or storm, he sought refuge in a peasant cottage. There by the warm hearth he espied a small chair unlike any he had previously seen. All of the legs and spindles were fit into drilled holes in the seat. As he sat to warm himself he declared it comfortable. His entourage, of course, wanted what the King declared in taste, and immediately upon returning to the castle, enquired of the chairmakers in Windsor for such chairs. Thus was born the Windsor Chair.
Windsor Castle
It is more likely that George I introduced a favor for this particular style of construction just prior to 1720, as the first examples appear in the record about this time. At first the style was used as garden furniture, providing the benefits of open air and sunshine for the aristocracy, but it soon proved to be more popular for its own charm and ease of manufacture. Nowhere was this more true than the American colonies, who thirsted for the homeland and anything English. Not only did the major cities embrace this new method of making chairs, but the ever expanding frontier could now provide chairs as well, due to the few simple tools required to produce them. Thus the many regional influences often make it possible to identify where chairs were made.
As fashion changed, the Windsor method was applied to meet increasing demand and took on the many different forms we now recognize as Windsor chairs. Whether they are Philadelphia low-backs, New York bow-backs, Rhode Island sack-backs or Boston rockers, they are the embodiment of the Windsor method and the American experience.