Gillows patented their Imperial dining-table in 1804 in which a variable number of loose leaves were fitted between fixed end leaves and initially with as many as ten or twelve legs to support the central leaves. Within a few years the design largely superseded most earlier ones and it remained popular such that another drawing of an improved version of the table by Ferguson & Co, successor to the Gillow family business, is dated as late as 1849 (see Susan E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, Woodbridge, 2008, vol.I, pp. 243-246).