This edited article about furniture makers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 672 published on 30 November 1974.

Thomas Chippendale’s workshop in St Martin’s Lane

Over the centuries, woodworkers in Britain have developed their fine skills in the craft of furniture making. Many years before the Norman conquest, woodmen, shipwrights and carpenters were extending their knowledge of working with the timber found in the many forests and woodlands of the countryside. From the days of the Medieval makers of chests and benches to the close of the Georgian period, furniture design in Britain reached a standard which has never been equalled.

It was during the Restoration period that craftsmen began to direct their skills to the production of beautiful, finely-made furniture and these men were called cabinet makers. The famous makers and designers of the 18th century, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Adam and Sheraton made such magnificent pieces, that the period became known as the finest age of English furniture.

At the beginning of the 19th century, during the reign of Prince Regent (later George IV), a light and elegant style of furniture, called Regency, was made. Gradually, as machines began to take over the work of craftsmen, there were a great many changes in furniture making.

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in old, beautifully made furniture and in Britain the firm of Bevan Funnell was set up to manufacture reproduction period furniture. The furniture is made on modern machinery but old fashioned hand carving and hand waxing is carried out in the finishing processes.

This edited article about sport originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 987 published on 7 February 1981.

Sports kit has changed since pre- and post-war days, especially in football

Equipment manufacturers are constantly searching for ways to improve sports equipment and dress. Association football provides one of the best examples of developments in this direction.

Before the Second World War, and for several years after, soccer players often wore shirts with long sleeves. Shorts were far from short – usually long and baggy, while socks were of thick wool. And no player would dare take the field without wearing shin-guards, a necessity when one considers the boots which were worn – thick leather with reinforced toecaps with an impact like concrete, and leather studs nailed into the sole of the boot.

In other ways too, heavy boots were a necessity because the ball itself was only made in heavy-duty leather. Not very light to begin with, it got heavier as the game wore on in muddy, wet conditions and needed a great deal of “boot” to propel it. It was also a heavy object to head.

Today the game is faster, and the increase in coaching and tactics has tended to produce more uniformity. Equipment designers have made their mark too: short-sleeved nylon shirts are now the order of the day and shorts live up to their name. Perhaps not so good as the pre-war garb on a cold day, it was highly uncomfortable in the rain to have these long, sodden “shorts” entwined around your legs.

The dramatic changes have come in the boots and ball. The football boot of today is much more like a light shoe, and to kick a pre-war football with a modern boot might result in a broken toe or ankle! Consequently, the present-day ball has a plastic coating and is also much lighter.

Thus it is not surprising that lighter kit, boots and ball have led to a faster game. But at the same time techniques have had to be adapted to cope with controlling and shooting such a ball, since it is obviously much easier to balloon today’s light ball over the bar.

Safety-wise there is also less danger surrounding football: less risk of injury from heading the ball; less risk from being kicked (some players do not bother to wear shin-guards today); and less risk from crashing into a goal-post, most of which no longer have sharp, squared-off edges.

Only on the matter of studs has science a dubious record, both in Association and Rugby football. Some of the plastic and aluminium studs which have been tried can be far more dangerous than the old leather studs and have produced very nasty cuts indeed.

Men’s tennis has tended to follow soccer, the old shirts and long flannel trousers having been replaced by short-sleeved T-shirts and shorts. Dress for women players seems to have settled on close-fitting, short dresses.

The scientists have worked hard in improving tennis rackets and balls – and this applies also to golf, where, for instance, the old hickory-shafted clubs gave way to metal.

The aim in tennis has been to produce a faster game and in golf to make the ball travel further, though even the scientists have not yet evolved a method to ensure that the beginner will even manage to hit the ball at all!

This edited article about the umbrella originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 966 published on 13 September 1980.

Children feeding their guinea pigs in the rain, by Clive Uptton

When, in 1750, Jonas Hanway appeared on the London streets carrying an umbrella he received jeers and insults. But gradually people realised that, while they were getting soaked in the pouring rain, he remained perfectly dry. It was not long before they, too, began carrying umbrellas.

Although Hanway is believed to have been the first British person to carry an umbrella, he did not invent it. He got the idea from the Far East, where the umbrella has been regarded as a symbol of importance for over 3,000 years. Some of these ceremonial umbrellas had several tiers to emphasize the importance of the person beneath.

This edited article about knitting originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 965 published on 6 September 1980.

Teddy Bear knitting

Knitting appears to have originated in Arabia over 3,000 years ago. Some of the items knitted by the nomadic tribesmen of that period exist to this day. They seem to have been particularly good at making socks, which they knitted on a circular wire frame. It was not until the 16th century that women became involved in knitting, for up to that time it had been a predominantly male activity. As a result of the Crimean War and the First World War, when women were encouraged to knit for the troops, knitting became a popular pastime, and women instead of men became the principal knitters in most countries. Most notorious knitters in literature are the women who, in Charles Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities, sat and knitted as they watched victims of the guillotine going to their deaths.

This edited article about fashion and feathers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 948 published on 22 March 1980.

Mrs Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough

You have probably heard of the expression, “A feather in your cap.” It is another way of saying a person has done rather well at something.

But a hundred or so years ago the saying had a far more sinister significance. Fashionable women literally did have feathers in their hats, and millions of birds from all over the world became innocent victims of a craze that was to sweep Europe and America.

London, Paris and New York were the centres of a flourishing trade dealing in birds’ feathers. Several species of birds were driven to the brink of extinction as they were ruthlessly hunted down in the quest for dazzling headgear.

A hat wasn’t a hat unless it sported some elegant plume or “aigrette” of an ostrich, heron, egret or, better still, bird of paradise. Some even had whole bodies of birds, heads or wings for that extra eye-catching touch of distinction. Gowns were trimmed with feathers of garden birds such as robins, while fans and muffs were edged with finches’ wings or the heads of larks and buntings.

Wearing feathers was nothing new, but never before had the passion reached such bizarre proportions. Red Indian braves had sported eagle feathers because they believed that they invested them with power and strength. For the natives of New Guinea, the spectacular plumes of birds of paradise were considered to be symbols of authority and prestige. As far back as the 16th century, knights returned from the Crusades proudly showing off plumes seized as spoils of war from eastern potentates.

In the 18th century, the court of Louis XVI became a riot of colourful feathers after Marie Antoinette sparked off a craze for plumes by wearing a spray of ostrich and peacock feathers in her hair on one occasion.

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This edited article about fashion originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 946 published on 8 March 1980.

Edward VII set the trend by wearing turned-up trousers, by Richard Hook

The story of trouser turn-ups began many years ago when an Englishman was invited to a wedding in New York on a wet day. To prevent the bottom of his trousers picking up mud from the pavement, he turned them up. He forgot to turn them down again when he arrived at the wedding. Other guests thought that his turned-up trousers were a new English fashion. The idea was generally adopted and turned-up trousers became the fashion of the day. Whether this explanation is true or not is not known. What is more likely is that a designer introduced them because he thought they gave a better finish to the trouser leg. Edward VII was one of the first to wear turned-up trousers in Britain and this gave them the social status that made others follow the trend. Nowadays they have been largely abolished by the ready-made clothing trade, because trousers without turn-ups are easier to shorten or lengthen. Since fashion is liable to change, trouser “cuffs”, as they are sometimes called, may return one day.

This edited article about shoes originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 928 published on 3 November 1979.

Did you know that between 100 and 150 people are involved in the making of one pair of shoes!

This edited article about Charles Macintosh’s waterproof rain coat originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 918 published on 25 August 1979.

The youth who dashed out into the rain after a busy day in a Glasgow counting house was off to attend a chemistry lecture. The lad devoted all his spare time to science, especially chemistry, and he sometimes went as far as Edinburgh to hear talks on his favourite topic.

As he made these evening pilgrimages in search of knowledge, he was preparing the way for the universally popular invention which bears his name – the macintosh.

Tired of life as a clerk, Charles Macintosh embarked before he was 20 on the manufacture of sal ammoniac – a hard, white crystalline salt with many uses in chemistry. He also started making acetate of alumina (which is used in dyeing), pioneered important improvements in the manufacture of Prussian blue, and invented various processes for dyeing textile fabrics.

Born in Glasgow on 29th December, 1766, Charles Macintosh was the son of a merchant. He was educated at Glasgow Grammar School and subsequently at a school in Yorkshire. Doubtless some impetus for his drive and enterprise resulted from his marriage in 1790 to Mary Fisher, daughter of another Glasgow merchant.

A career as a merchant lacked appeal for him and he chose to make his mark in the field of chemistry.

At the age of 31, he started the first alum works in Scotland, obtaining his raw material from aluminous wastes at exhausted coal mines.

Later he worked with another chemist, Charles Tennant, and it has been claimed that Macintosh was the inventor of the method of making chloride of lime, or bleaching powder, patented in Tennant’s name in 1799. The manufacture of this was a source of considerable wealth to the chemical factory which made the powder.

Another activity carried out by Macintosh was the treatment of gas works waste. This provided useful products, and it was his efforts to use the naptha obtained as a by-product in the distillation of tar that led to the invention of waterproof fabrics.

Using the solvent action of naptha on india-rubber, he made waterproof fabrics by cementing two thicknesses together with india-rubber dissolved in naptha.

Charles Macintosh’s discoveries earned him a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1824. The commercial manufacture of these fabrics was begun at a factory in Manchester.

Serious practical difficulties had to be overcome, with many people fearing that the material would be unhealthy because it trapped perspiration.

The material was manufactured by Thomas Hancock, who wrote: “Most of the tailors set their faces against the use of our material; others made it up so badly that the garments were not waterproof: at every seam the cloth, being penetrated by the needle, allowed the water to pass.”

Tailors were advised to make loose-fitting garments with as few seams as possible. For this purpose the cloth was supplied in large widths; yet the tailors obstinately persisted in making close-fitting garments.

They were offended when told that their seams could not be made watertight, and that the garments would have to be sent to the works for proofing.

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This edited article about the origin of the cardigan and balaclava originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 915 published on 4 August 1979.

During the summer months, probably the last thing you want to think about is warm clothes – but with Britain’s climate you never can tell.

Certainly let us hope you will not be needing your cardigan or balaclava, those two woolly items of clothing normally kept for winter.

Where did those two words come from? If your history is up to scratch, seeing those words together should trigger off a spark of recognition.

The thing they have in common is the Crimean War, in which the Seventh Earl of Cardigan led the famous charge of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaclava on the 25th October, 1854.

The Crimean War was fought on the exposed slopes of the Black Sea coast, and for much of the time it was bitterly cold. To keep the troops warm, especially when sleeping out, woollen helmets were issued which covered their heads and shoulders, save for a small part of the face. These pieces of headgear soon acquired the name “balaclavas”.

The troops were also given woollen waistcoats (with or without sleeves) and one of their greatest supporters was Lord Cardigan, whose name these garments still bear today.

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This edited article about the 18th century women’s hair styles originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 906 published on 2 June 1979.

Ellaborate 18th century hairstyles and costume. Illustration for Le Costume Historique by M A Racinet

There is no limit to the lengths people will go to keep abreast of fashion. In the 18th century hairstyles became ludicrously elaborate, hair piled high, padded with false pieces. Flowers and even live birds in cages were incorporated and, to preserve the design intact, women slept with a wooden block under their necks so that their hair was not touched.

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