A swivel or revolving chair is a chair

Chair

A chair is a stable, raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back; however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape depending on the criteria of the chair specifications. A chair without a back or...

 with a single central leg that allows the seat to spin around.

Types

Swivel chairs can have wheels on the base allowing the user to move the chair around their work area without getting up. This type is common in modern office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

s and are often also referred to as office chairs. Office swivel chairs, like computer chairs, usually incorporate a gas lift

Gas lift chairs

A gas lift chair is a form of office chair that allows the user to modify their height in relation to the height of a desk, leading to an increase in comfort and ergonomic benefit....

 to adjust the height of the seat, but not usually large (e.g. recliner) swivelling armchairs.

A draughtsman

Draughtsman

A draughtsman or draftsman , is a person skilled in drawing, either:*drawing for artistic purposes, or*technical drawing for practical purposes such as architecture or engineering...

's chair is a swivel chair without wheels that is usually taller than an 'office chair' for use in front of a drawing board

Drawing board

A drawing board is, in its antique form, a kind of multipurpose desk which can be used for any kind of drawing, writing or impromptu sketching on a large sheet of paper or for reading a large format book or other oversized document or for drafting precise technical illustrations...

. They also have a foot-ring to support the legs when it is not possible to reach the ground.

Origin

Using an English-style Windsor chair

Windsor chair

A Windsor chair is a chair built with a solid wooden seat into which the chair-back and legs are dowelled, or pushed into drilled holes, in contrast to standard chairs, where the back legs and the uprights of the back are continuous. The seats of Windsor chairs were often carved into a shallow dish...

 of which was possibly made and purchased from Francis Trumble

Francis Trumble

Francis Trumble was a chair and cabinetmaker in Philadelphia during the 18th century. Trumble produced a variety of "fine furniture" including in the Queen Anne , Chippendale and Federal styles. He also manufactured Windsor chairs that are believed to be the ones depicted in paintings of the...

 or Philadelphia cabinet-maker Benjamin Randolph, Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 invented the first swivel chair. Jefferson heavily modified the Windsor chair and incorporated top and bottom parts connected by a central iron spindle, enabling the top half known as the seat, to swivel on casters of the type used in rope-hung windows. When the Second Continental Congress

Second Continental Congress

The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774,...

 met in Philadelphia, Jefferson's swivel chair is purported to be where he drafted the United States Declaration of Independence

United States Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...

 in 1776. Jefferson later had the swivel chair sent to his Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 plantation, Monticello

Monticello

Monticello is a National Historic Landmark just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia; it is...

, where he later built a "writing paddle" onto its side in 1791. Since 1836, the chair has been in the possession of the American Philosophical Society

American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...

 located in Philadelphia.

In systems integration

In Systems Integration, the term swivel chair is frequently used to describe a manual interface, where a human user re-keys information from one computer system to another.