PEL model G7

Practical Equipment Ltd. was founded in 1931 by a consortium of steel tube manufacturers. The company emulated continental firms such as Thonet and wished to win the British market for metal furniture. This aim was boosted in their first year by winning the commission to furnish the London headquarters of the BBC in Langham Place. Apart from a small minority, the British were resistant to what they felt was the cold, mechanical appearance of steel furniture for the home, and it proved more popular in public areas and work places. Manufacturers produced the furniture as a means of marketing steel tube, not for the utopian social concepts associated with European Modernism, the source of many

Umbrella stand · Birmingham · 1936-1937. Bent chromed tubular steel with enamelled drip tray. By Pel Limited - Pel Furniture. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.