On Sunday, the weekday tablecloth (or newspaper) might be replaced with a smarter cloth signifying the special nature of the day. Changing the appearance of the table could also help alter the ambiance of the living room. Uses of the table were also seasonal: warmer weather and lighter evenings meant children played outside and grown-ups chatted on doorsteps. Food preparation was a daytime activity, while the playing of games took place in evenings and at weekends. Ironing would occur either on washday (usually Monday) or the following day. The uses of the kitchen table varied over time and reflected the distinctive weekly and daily routines of the working-class home. These ranged from eating to more obscure uses such as an operating table to remove tonsils. In all, the autobiographical sources referred to 24 different uses of the kitchen table. Middle-class children had a different relationship with the kitchen table because playing games and doing homework could be done elsewhere. Homework would be done at the table too as overcrowded bedrooms lacked desks, heat and adequate lighting. Memoirs of working-class childhood recall playing at the table and using it for variety of games from Ludo to ping pong. The table was used as an ironing board and for washing up in homes lacking a sink. At that time, only the servants ate regular meals at the kitchen table in wealthy households and the kitchen of the lower-middle class suburban ‘semi’ had little space for eating at a table.įood preparation was generally done at the kitchen table as it was the only work surface in an era before units. Though middle-class families now eat meals in their kitchen, this was not the case before the Second World War. It was at the kitchen table that the family ate together, sometimes in two sittings if the family was large. Some uses for the table are familiar others are now rare. In the early part of the period, the main light source might sit there. It was the focal point of the living room and activities took place around or on the table. A dedicated ‘kitchen’ was therefore not a given in the working-class home and plans for the first council houses in 1918 had ‘living rooms’ and ‘sculleries’ but no ‘kitchens’.įor many it was the table – the only one in the house. This would be done in a 'scullery' or ‘back kitchen’. Food was prepared and cooked in the living room but it was unlikely to be a place for washing dishes. For two thirds of the autobiographers examined, this room was described as a ‘kitchen’ but for one third it was referred to as a ‘living room’. Certainly, in middle-class homes, the kitchen table was there, but in the working-class home it was in the main family living space. Nowadays we might assume that this was the kitchen. The kitchen table needs to be placed in its environment in order to understand its significance. Its importance is clearly shown in working-class autobiographies which described the details of domestic life during the first half of the twentieth century.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the ‘kitchen table’ was an essential item of furniture for the British working-class family. But the table in the kitchen has a longer history, and its one in which social class has a big role to play. The table is often a symbol for togetherness, a place for rituals that celebrate family and community. Lifestyle magazines and media often sell the idea that the ultimate in togetherness is friends having a meal around a big table in a kitchen dining room.

Kitchen working table