Anthony Bailey researches the history of ration-era furniture and restores a 1950 stable.
In the 21st century – the age of cheap, mass-produced products – we think nothing of buying new furniture and dumping our old pieces at the recycling centre. However, during World War II, all materials were in short supply, including timber, and these shortages continued in the years following the end of the war. At the same time, demand for new furniture was high as many people had lost their homes and possessions due to bomb damage.
The utility furniture scheme
Introduced in 1942, the Utility Furniture Scheme sought to address this major problem and its work continued into postwar austerity until 1952. The Utility Furniture Advisory Committee drew on the considerable experience of furniture makers Gordon Russell and Ernest Clench, as well as Herman Lebus and John Gloag. Their job was to ensure that scarce timber resources were used in a sensible way, new furniture being made available only to those who had been bombed out or were newly wed. A logo, often referred to as the ‘two cheeses’ and previously used for utility clothing, was also adopted for the furniture scheme.
The committee published a catalogue in 1943 featuring a number of approved designs which were mostly in the tradition of the Arts & Crafts movement, quite simple and unornamented, unlike the more elaborate decorative styles that had been popular before the war.
The committee was reconstituted as the Utility Design Panel in 1943, with Gordon Russell as the chairman. Over time the committee created three ranges of furniture – Cotswold, Chiltern and Cockaigne – which were carried forward into the postwar period in an important exhibition of postwar design called Britain Can Make It. This government-backed exhibition ran at the V&A museum in London for 14 weeks in the autumn of 1946. Its aim was to boost British manufacturing and promote a ‘design consciousness’ in the general public. The furniture exhibits showed how the utility scheme evolved after the war: more ‘luxury’ items could now be made but manufacturers were encouraged to maintain the more economical wartime production methods.
While the panel members were firm believers in the aesthetics of their designs, popular taste still favoured ornamentation, indeed there were reports of utility furniture available on the black market with carved decorations added to them. The population was war-weary and rather than accepting the designs that they felt were being foisted on them, they sough relief from the drabness and austerity of straitened times with more decorative goods. When the design rules were relaxed in 1948 and the Scandinavian-influenced Diversified range was announced, public taste was very much against it. The panel was wound down and the wartime scheme finally ceased in 1952 when furniture rationing ended.
Over the decades, public taste has changed again and in today’s market midcentury furniture, including Utility designs, is considered highly collectable. The Gordon Russell Design Museum in Broadway, Worcestershire, has several exhibits relating to Russell’s work for the Utility Furniture Scheme.
To find out more visit gordonrusselldesignmuseum.org
Kidney-shaped table restoration
This little table had been in my wife’s family for some time and was in need of some restoration. A thorough assessment and some detective work was required before I could get started though. The finish was worn out. It had been fudged over with some kind of streaky brown substance, odd bits of knife-cut veneer around the vulnerable edges had been torn off and the legs were wobbly. There were dark ring marks on the table top, which spoke of its misuse over time.
When I turned it upside down the thick laminations of the kidney curves were visible, as was the aged hide glue around the leg support blocks, one of which was missing. In the middle was the ‘two cheeses’ symbol of the Commodities Committee 1941, which denoted it as a piece of Utility furniture from World War II, which the family had always accepted it to be. Except it couldn’t be Utility furniture – it wasn’t straight and square, and it didn’t eschew ornament with its Queen Anne-style legs.
So this funny little side table didn’t make sense. I did some research in a book called Utility Furniture by Jon Mills. It is very informative and features a facsimile of the wartime Utility Catalogue. The answer to the mystery lay on page 14: ‘In June 1948 furniture rationing ended, although furniture makers could continue making CC41 Utility-marked furniture of their own design as evidence of quality of workmanship. Many did so until the Utility Furniture Scheme ended in 1952.’ So, that explained it. Whoever made it simply produced what most people craved after wartime austerity – back to the traditional and out with the square, in a postwar four-year time slot.
Stages of restoration
