I came into the furniture market in 1960 with my first job in a retail furniture shop in east London. Eight years earlier the production of furniture in the UK under the Utility brand ended.

In the middle of World War Two it had become apparent that the combination of a severe lack of timber suitable for furniture making (in which Britain was not self-sufficient) and the increased demand for new furniture due to the losses of housing caused by bombing and to the continuing establishment of new households after marriage, had created a severe furniture shortage.

The Utility Furniture Committee was set up in 1942, drawing on considerable expertise, principally Gordon Russell and Ernest Clench, also Herman Lebus and John Gloag, in order to assure that the scarce available resources were used in a sensible way. New furniture was rationed and was restricted to newly-weds and people who had been bombed out, under the “Domestic Furniture (Control of Manufacture and Supply (No 2)) Order 1942″ operative from 1 November 1942.

The Committee produced a number of approved designs, published in the Utility Furniture Catalogue of 1943. The aim was to ensure the production of strong well-designed furniture making the most efficient use of the scarce timber. The designs were largely in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement, and were severe in their simplicity and lack of ornamentation, entirely contrary to popular taste of the immediate pre-war period. Furniture based on these designs was constructed by about 700 firms around the country. Given the huge number of individual manufacturers involved, it is perhaps not surprising that quality varied enormously.

This was long before the establishment of the fitted furniture industry in this country.

The Committee were genuine believers in the aesthetic qualities of their designs. Popular hankering for superfluous ornament however manifested itself immediately, and instances were apparently reported of black market utility furniture with added carvings and decoration. The Committee were reconstituted as the Design Panel in 1943; and in 1946, in conjunction with the important exhibition of post-war design, “Britain Can Make It“, unveiled three new furniture ranges (Cotswold, Chiltern and Cockaigne) intended to carry forward the best of their design ethos into the postwar period. Despite their best efforts to steer public taste, as soon as the war ended the general public reacted against its austerities and the mass market swung towards colourful and extravagant designs. Although the “Diversified” range was announced in 1948, drawing on contemporary Scandinavian designs, the tide of public taste was against it and the Panel was wound down; the Scheme was officially closed in 1952.

The logo of utility furniture was taken from that developed earlier for the Utility clothing scheme: two capital letters C’s and the figure 41, for “Civilian Clothing 1941″ (which soon became known as “The Cheeses”).

In 1960 most of the companies that had been manufacturing Utility Furniture were still in business and included Harris Lebus of Tottenham who owned what was reputed to be the world’s largest furniture factory. This facility was over a mile long and the company published a catalogue the size of a modern paperback that contained thousands of items of furniture. The Lebus catalogue was known in the retail trade as the ‘bible’ and was the first port of call when a customer asked for a specific individual piece of furniture such as a table,  sideboard or wardrobe. Most of Lebus’ production was still based on the old Utility designs and the predominant material was oak. Oak had served the furniture industry well during the war and the years of austerity that followed. We had fairly plentiful supplies of indigenous oak and whatever else was needed was available from the USA in plentiful quantities and at affordable prices. For more discerning client’s walnut was available at a premium price, again from home grown stocks and the plentiful hardwood forests of America.

However, the furniture buying public was looking for something new, something different to what Mum and Dad had during the war and that did not remind them of the old Utility days.

Enter the two major furniture manufacturing companies most prominent in the other important cabinet making area, of the Chiltern Hills around High Wycombe: Ercolani and E. Gomme. Both of these business were founded by Jewish refugees from Europe and neither were tainted by association with the Utility brand.

The connection with the Chilterns was important for Ercolani who had their own plantations of elm and beech the traditional european chair makers’ raw material and their elegant blend of traditional and modern designs  were such a runaway success that there was soon a waiting list of up to 12 months for Ercol furniture.

E. Gomme took a different route;  sourcing exotic teak, now becoming available  from the far east in the burgeoning post war market and using it to create a new trend in stylish modern furniture based on Scandinavian designs; E. Gomme created a brand that became synonymous with contemporary furniture; G Plan.