I am not one to blow my own trumpet but I and my very well educated wife Milissa (An historian) did some research on the origins of the Staunton pattern chess set design which is here if anyone is interested.
http://www.chessspy.com/articles/Staunton%20Chess%20Set%20Design.pdf
Do not miss the endnotes which are quite extensive and (I think) interesting. (Scroll down a bit after the end of the article) Whist this is not what is called 'full dress' academic research it is considerably more accurate than most of what can be found elsewhere on the web.
The article also touches on other English chess set designs which were popular in clubs at the time.
Jack_Burton great topic!
Thanks to RCMacMillan and Questionableknight for the insight.
Although I have at least 50 sets of every quality and description it's a thread like this that gets me hankering for just one more.