What ever happened to Betty Joel, trailblazing British designer of the 1930s?

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In 1931, the designer Betty Joel opened the newly decorated “living room” of her Knightsbridge showroom to the public. Lured by reports of the unusual interior, 2,000 visitors came to see its walnut cocktail cabinet, stepped bookcase and tweed-clad upholstery in scarlet and jade against apricot walls.

At the time, Joel was a household name. Known for her streamlined, contemporary furniture, her eponymous company also produced rugs, fabrics and interiors for clients including Lord Mountbatten, Sir Winston Churchill and Claridge’s hotel. But in 1938, perhaps due to the break-up of her marriage to business partner David Joel, she retired. Today, she is largely unknown outside design circles.

A new book by her great-nephew Clive Stewart-Lockhart, an art adviser, aims to restore her reputation. He has spent a decade researching Joel’s legacy in museums, archives and auction houses. Several of her schemes — in the Art Deco St Olaf House on the Thames, or the sleek, cigar-box interior of a Harley Street home — have survived.

Born in 1894, Joel grew up in China, where her father was a civil servant. She was proud of her “non-bourgeois” upbringing, says Stewart-Lockhart. This, combined with the “realism” inherited from her Scots father, shaped her character; determined and resourceful, she was successful in the male-dominated world of design.

In 1921, Joel and her husband, a former naval captain, moved into the house they had designed themselves on Hayling Island, near Portsmouth. Joel was frustrated by the choice of new furniture on the market and, despite a lack of training, came up with her own designs, which her husband made in the garage. The avant-garde pieces piqued the interest of friends, who ordered their own. A business began. By 1928, they had opened a showroom in London.

Joel understood branding. She appeared in advertisements, adjusting her look to suit current trends: from Pre-Raphaelite locks to an “à la garçonne” crop. The delivery van, fashioned from a Rolls-Royce, was sprayed daffodil yellow to match her front door. Inspired by Chanel, she produced a house perfume. In 1933, 2,500 Betty Joel-designed radios were sold in one day. In 1937, a painterly rug won first prize in a competition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. There were stunts too, such as a revolving bed shown at the Royal Academy in 1935. “She liked to shock,” says Stewart-Lockhart.

Yet hers was a very English sort of Modernism. Her furniture was contemporary but not radical, pairing simple, unfussy outlines with classical joinery. She dabbled in then-fashionable glass and chrome (examples survive at the Daily Express Building) but wood — sycamore and Queensland silky oak in particular — was her favourite material. Several of her craftsmen had trained as yacht-fitters and innovative space-saving features were common in her work, such as the deep cabin beds or round extendable table with petal-like leaves. 

For Lord Mountbatten’s Park Lane apartment, she produced cedar storage furniture with handy drawers for records. The radiators were hidden behind grilles modelled on those found on ships, and the walls were decorated with a hand-painted map of the world.

At a time when women were responsible for housework, Joel also designed pieces that made their lives easier: flush handles and smooth surfaces or plinths meant there was no need to vacuum underneath furniture. Details that we can all appreciate today.

“Betty Joel” by Clive Stewart-Lockhart; Token Press, £55

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