Did You Know?….Romford Stove
The “Romford stove” which is mentioned in some 19th Century literature refers to a Rumford stove or fireplace as championed by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an Anglo-American physicist and inventor. He designed a fireplace, or altered existing ones with brick inserts, to make them shallower with a narrower, taller chimney to improve their ability to heat a room and clear/keep it smoke free. They first appeared in the mid 1790s.
Chloe Branwhite, Havering Museum Head of Collections & Exhibitions
This is a Rumford fireplace not the Rumford stove, they are two different things
Interestingly I have just been reading the inventory of fixtures and accoutrements of an 1884 lease for a minor mansion house, in which the term ’36 inch Romford stove’ is used for a fireplace in one bedroom, and 20 inch one in a bathroom. So I gather that these terms were rather loosely used in the day.