It was made for Isaac Milner, President 1778–1820, who, in later life, became exceedingly broad of girth, to the extent that he could not sit in a normal chair.
This chair is just over 1 metre wide.
Dean Milner, always a big man, attained huge proportions in his later years. This is clear not only from his portraits but from the piece of furniture known as “Milner’s chair” in the Gallery of the Lodge, in which two men of ordinary girth can sit, and in which three ladies of slender proportions have contrived to bestow themselves.
[The Queens’ College of St Margaret and St Bernard in the University of Cambridge, by Joseph Henry Gray, 1st ed. p. 268; 2nd ed. p. 246]