Managing British Design Reform I: Fresh perspectives on the early years of the Council of Industrial Design

Journal of Design History

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 55-65

  Woodham, Jonathan M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0040261868     PISSN: 09524649     EISSN: 17417279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jdh/9.1.55     Document Type: Review

References (51)

1. See, for example, D. I. LeMahieu, A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain Between the Wars, Clarendon, 1988;
2. also J. M. Woodham, 'British modernism: an historical "leger de main"', in Tradizione e Modernismo Design: 1918-1940, L'Arca (Milan), 1987.
3. Particularly useful in the light of the Modern Movement in Britain between the wars is H. Lipstadt, 'Polemic and parody for British modernism', AA Files, January 1983.
4. This (initially) state-funded body shared many members with the DIA and the CAI in the inter-war years. However, its importance has been rather undervalued by a number of historians of British design, including F. MacCarthy, All Things Bright and Beautiful: Design in Britain 1830 to Today, Allen & Unwin, 1972
5. R. Stewart, Design and British Industry, John Murray, 1987
6. and myself in J. M. Woodham, The Industrial Designer and the Public, Pembridge Press, 1983.
7. The British Institute of Industrial Art was responsible for the key design chapters in the (Balfour) Committee on Industry and Trade Report on Factors in Industrial and Commercial Efficiency, HMSO, 1927, and, despite the withdrawal of direct Treasury funding, continued to be active until 1933 when the CAI was formed. There is still a considerable amount of useful research to be undertaken on both the BIIA and the CAI.
8. LeMahieu, op. cit.
9. Council for Art and Industry, Design and the Designer in Industry, HMSO, 1937.
10. It may be worth remembering that, in the mid-1930s, as Chair of the CAI, Frank Pick categorized Barlow as having 'taste and critical judgement' and Tennyson as 'a doer' (BT/57/11/A189). All document numbers referenced below with the prefix BT, unless otherwise stated, relate to the collections at the Public Record Office, Kew, London. BT denotes Board of Trade. Those prefixed by ID (denoting Industrial Design) are drawn from the Design Council Archive at the Design History Research centre at the University of Brighton.
11. Report of the Sub-Committee Appointed by Mr Harcourt Johnston on Industrial Design and Art in Industry, 23 September 1943.
12. For further details, see Francis Meynell's autobiography, My Lives, Bodley Head, 1971.
13. See also Dame Alix Kilroy's autobiography, Public Servant, Private Woman: An Autobiography, Gollancz, 1988. Her affections are discussed in some detail, including an affair with the modernist architect-designer, Wells Coates.
14. It is interesting to compare the traditional picture of Russell's influence on these years, as portrayed by most design historians (and, indeed, by Russell himself in his autobiography, Designer's Trade: Autobiography of Gordon Russell, Allen & Unwin, 1968)
15. These were Miss I. Young, who was described in CoID notes as 'ist Class Honours in "Greats"; since that, a variety of jobs now acting as acting Director of Business of John Lewis Partnership'; Mrs Mairet 'RDI aged 72 . . . A top rank designer and is noted for her hand weaving. Head of Ditchling Weaving School and teacher of weaving at Brighton School of Art'; and Mrs Cooke '(Secretary of Women's Co-op Guild) of whom further particulars will be sent to us by Dr. Edwards'.
16. Lord Sempill had earlier served as the DIA President, revealing a certain social continuity of high-profile posts.
17. BT 64/3635. It is interesting to contrast his concern with that of the Federation of British Industries in June 1944 as part of its response to the Proposals for a Central Design Council and Industrial Design Centres where it was felt that 'the control of the administration should be in the hands of a young man, with an adequate salary and of first-rate artistic sense and business ability' (D/1/3, contained in the Design Council Archive at the University of Brighton under MU Papers Relating to the Setting Up of the CoID).
18. As, for example, was the case with the links seen in personal correspondence between Sir Thomas Barlow's brother. Sir Alan (J. A. ), at the Treasury and Lord Crawford at the Royal Fine Art Commission, at the time of Thomas's appointment as inaugural Chairman of the CoID in 1944.
19. P. Reilly, An Eye on Design: An Autobiography, Max Reinhart, 1987, p. 61.
20. Cited in an appendix to the report on Student Manners of 13 February 1957, contained in ID/C1708 Comment on Student Behaviour on Entering Industry.
21. Found in a second report on Student Manners dated 26 February 1957, loc. cit.
22. There was very widespread criticism in manufacturing circles about the selection by CoID panels for the 'Britain Can Make It' exhibition of 1946. This continued through the later 1940s and 1950s with regard to other exhibitions, and Design Centre Awards and Selections.
23. R. Plummer, Nothing Need Be Ugly: The First 70 Years of the Design & Industries Association, DIA, 1985, p. 84.
24. Design Week, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Design Report of Conferences, CoID, 1947, pp. 20-1.
25. Letter of 31 January 1949 from John Gloag to Mark Hartland Thomas contained in the document file ID/ 137 Suggestions by Mr John Gloag Relating to the Operations of the Council.
26. BT/64/2177.
27. C. Tennyson, Stars and Markets, Chatto & Windus, 1957.
28. Reilly, op. cit.
29. Russell, op. cit.
30. P. Maguire, 'Utility and the politics of consumption', circulated notes dated 1 July 1994 at the 'Utility Reassessed: Design Utopia or Strategy' international conference mounted at Winchester School of Art, July 1994.
31. Russell, op. cit. , p. 208.
32. F. A. Mercer, letter to the Rt. Hon. Stafford Cripps, August 1945, n. d. , in the Design Council Archive, ID C 364 1945/6. It was acknowledged by Cripps at the Board of Trade on 13 August 1945, saying that it would be passed on to Leslie at the CoID. The Design Council Archive and Photographic Library is now held in the Design History Research Centre at the University of Brighton.
33. The CoID's Government Grant-In-Aid for 1947/48 was £145,000.
34. Letter from Peter Hatch, Information Division, CoID to International Realist Films Ltd. dated 13 July 1949, in Design Council Archive ID 750/1 1947/48/49.
35. The film, its content, and resulting controversies will be covered in detail in an article linked to this, 'Managing British Design Reform II', which is to be published in a subsequent issue of the Journal of Design History.
36. ID 189, Public Relations Policy.
37. Several aspects are outlined in S. Worden, 'A voice for whose choice? Advice for consumers in the late 1930s', in Design History: Fad or Function? Design Council, 1978, pp. 41-8. As she noted, the DIA in 1936 made a direct comparison between their contrasting of 'good' and 'bad' designs with the Deutscher Werkbund's 'Beispiel und Gegen Beispiel'.
38. The visiting public returned 37,000 questionnaires in 1945.
39. See Section 11, Design Week Drama, in 'Action points arising from the public relations staff meeting' of 27 January 1948 in ID/189 Public Relations Policy.
40. As well as material contained within the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, the Design Council Archive at the University of Brighton contains the following sets of documents: ID/903/14, Report by Mass Observation on Britain Can Make It: Notes on Methods Used, ID/903/14, ID/903/14 (cont. ), Report by Mass Observation on Britain Can Make It (including a wide range of correspondence)
41. and ID/903 Report by Mass Observation on Britain Can Make It: Sections C & B, December 1946.
42. ID/903, as above, Section B: Effects of the Exhibition: Taste, Design and Consumer Habits and Section C: Specific Preferences and Selective Problems.
43. See, for example, J. M. Woodham, 'Design promotion 1946 and after', in P. Sparke (ed. ), Did Britain Make It? Design Council, 1986, pp. 23-7.
44. Russell, op. cit. , p. 211.
45. J. Birchall, Co-op: the People's Business, Manchester University Press, 1994.
46. For further discussion of this, see J. M. Woodham, 'The post-war consumer: design propaganda and awareness, 1945-1965', in From Spitfire to Microchip: Studies in the History of Design, Design Council, 1985, pp. 6-11;
47. M. Llewellyn, (Design for Study) Design and Our Homes, Education Department, Co-operative Union Ltd. and the Council of Industrial Design, 1952, p. 84.
48. G. Russell, 'Design and its importance', Design and the Co-operative Movement: Co-operative Management Conference, CoID/Co-operative Union Ltd. , 1952, p. 4.
49. Located in ID/819 Co-operative Wholesale Society: Report on Design Policy.
50. 'Atomic crystal gazing at Brussels exhibition: glamour of British tradition', The Times, 16 April 1958, p. 9.
51. For further detailed discussion of a number of these issues, see P. Maguire, 'Craft capitalism and the projection of British industry in the 1950s and 1960s', Journal of Design History, vol. 6, no. 2, 1993, pp. 97-114.