Drawing for a printed illustration, components of Utility chairs, Anonymous illustrator, 1942

Line drawing for a printed illustration, showing components of two Utility chairs - an armchair and a dining room chair. Both chairs are annotated with numbers.

Given by the Board of Trade

This is a component drawing for the publication 'General Specification for Utility Furniture', published by the Board of Trade in 1942. The Utility scheme was a war-time intervention by Government to standardise furniture in order to avoid wasting precious raw materials. A committee, infused with an almost nineteenth century moral purpose and earnestness, supervised the design, initially of a range of 30 items designed by Edwin Clinch and H.T. Cutter from the traditional furniture centre of High Wycombe. The furniture, issued under a rationing coupon system, was available to newly married couples and people who had been bombed out. A legally enforced specification was licensed to certain manufacturers, who, to save fuel, were regionally organised and so might have little previous experience of furniture making. Post-war austerity meant that the Utility furniture scheme was only fully revoked in 1951.

[Stephen Astley, 'British Design at Home', p.132]

E.46-1964