Page 1
HOW THE
AGA
COOKER
HOW THE AGA COOKER BECAME AN ICON
BECAME AN
ICON
The story of the talented individuals
who helped shape the future
of life in the British home
PLUS
perfect for 21st century living
why the modern AGA is
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TEN dEcadEs of hEriTagE
and still at the cutting edge today
When the AGA cooker was introduced to the UK in 1929, seven
years after its invention, it was an instant success. It is now in its tenth
decade and it continues to innovate. The very latest technology has been
employed to continue the kitchen revolution. There is the ultra-modern
AGA Total Control. From the outside, the AGA Total Control looks
exactly like a classic AGA cooker. But beneath its cast-iron exterior lies a
state-of-the-art touchscreen control panel that enables owners to operate
the cooker in a way that suits them. The AGA iTotal Control takes this
a stage further, with oven programmability made possible by remote
control, even via the web or a smartphone. The AGA, then, is not resting
on its laurels. It remains steeped in heritage, but keen to continue to
innovate to ensure it is as relevant for the 21st century as it was in the
1930s when a team of brilliance made it a British icon.
How e AGA Became An Icon 3
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forEWord
he AGA cooker is a way of life. It commands
levels of adulation more oen associated
T
similar loyalties. One woman taking part in an AGA
demonstration went so far as to insist it was warmer,
more reliable and infinitely better looking than most
men and that, given the choice between her husband
and her AGA, she’d waste no time packing his bags!
e inventor of the AGA cooker in 1922 was
Dr Gustaf Dalén, could have imagined the heady
heights of fame that his creation would go on to
reach. Dalén, an entrepreneur and a Nobel Prizewinning engineer and devoted husband. Intellectually
and commercially, he wanted to create an efficient
stove that would free his wife from domestic drudgery
and address the engineering question of how best to
get heat from its source into the food. Radiant heat
from the cast-iron walls of the AGA cooker’s ovens
provided the answer.
Now, the AGA cooker once most associated with
rambling country piles and farmhouse kitchens
complete with orphan lambs and sodden spaniels is
with the latest boy band and generates
just at home in an über-hip metropolitan
environment. e modern version is setting out to be
a world class cooker, able to take on all cookery styles
whatever their origins.
For the world’s most famous cooker is now also the
globe’s coolest cooker. Its enduring good looks are
seducing yet another new audience. Today, it finds
itself dancing chic-to-chic with a more independently
minded, more metropolitan consumer and wherever
you are in the world you can have an AGA cooker
that works for you.
e AGA boasts a peerless pedigree and is today cast
in iron at the historic Coalbrookdale foundry in the
Shropshire hills that is a World Heritage Site and
was at the very birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
when, in 1709, Abraham Darby first smelted iron ore
with coke to make cooking pots.
Its design has been allowed to evolve with care to the
point where the cooker’s look has now achieved icon
status. e special place it occupies in the hearts and
minds of owners is unique and undeniable.
q
How e AGA Became An Icon
4
Inventor of the AGA cooker, Dr Gustaf Dalén,
a Nobel Prize-winning physicist
How e AGA Became An Icon 5
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SALUTING the individuals whose
vision created one of the world’s
most respected brands…
Mention the word AGA to anyone and you’ll get
an immediate and emotional response. It is quite
simply the most famous cooker and one that is
loved by millions the world over.
While the AGA is well-known for its brilliant cooking
performance and iconic good looks, there is also a
remarkable story behind the emergence of the
AGA cooker as an icon.
Between 1933 and 1946 an extraordinary team of
people came together and had a lasting impact on
the way we cook and the way we live.
When we launched the AGA Total Control in 2011,
themes from the 1930s still resonated today. We
investigated further.
A role such as mine within AGA is many faceted,
with one distinct element being that of brand
custodian. It was with this in mind that we took on
a project to research and collate our archives with
a view to understanding the origins of the power
and unique appeal of the AGA cooker.
Over the course of our investigations it became
clear that one man, W.T. Wren, was responsible
for bringing together a team of such talent and
prescience that they quite simply changed the way
Britain lived.
These changes, which centered on the launch of
the New Standard AGA, were not short lived and
even now the impact that they had on the shape
of our homes and our lives remain.
That’s why we have created this publication to
provide an insight into a fascinating social history,
to celebrate the company’s rich and varied
heritage and, of course, to bring the archives to life.
William McGrath
CEO AGA Rangemaster Group
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12 visionaries
The individuals who made it all happen
W. T. Wren
l Head of AGA Heat
and Allied Ironfounders
l Innovator
l Visionary
l Second World
War spy
David Ogilvy
l First AGA salesman
and marketing
consultant
l Advertising genius
l The inspiration for
TV’s Mad Men
l Second World War spy
Sometimes, when a group
of people gell, there is an
alchemy that ensures
something extraordinary will
happen. This was the case
when the team below came
together to ensure the AGA
Ambrose Heath
l Gastronome
l Food writer
l First celebrity cook
l Author of the early
AGA cookbooks
cooker was to become an icon. They showed the world the importance of
great design, perfectly cooked food, economy and ergonomics – all within
the kind of modern kitchen setting that had never been seen before. In
fact, from 1935 – in developing and launching the New Standard AGA
cooker – they shaped the future and changed the way people lived. It
was their influence that made the kitchen the most important room in the
house and made good food and cooking a new national interest…
Raymond Loewy
l US industrial design guru
l Head of Raymond Loewy
Associates
l Oversaw re-design of
the AGA cooker through
London offices
l Styled the Rayburn
Douglas Scott
l Industrial designer
l Re-designed the AGA
cooker
l Introduced the
Standard Model C AGA
cooker
l Designed the Rayburn
How e AGA Became An Icon
8
Francis Ogilvy
l Head of ad agency
Mather & Crowther
l Second World
War writer for
Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Charles Ludovic Scott
l AGA Heat Ltd’s
Technical
Research Officer
l Responsible for the
technology behind
the new Standard
Model C AGA cooker
Dorothy Braddell
l Redefined how Britain
saw the kitchen
l Designed AGA kitchen
roomsets in 1930s
and 40s
Lawrence Wright
l Pioneering perspective artist
l Illustrated AGA Heat’s roomset designs
Mabel Collins
l 1935, head of AGA Heat Ltd’s
new Cookery Advisory Department
Carl Otto
l Industrial designer
l Designer of the Otto
stove
l Head of the London
office of Raymond
Loewy Associates
Edward Bawden
l Artist and illustrator
l Illustrated many
iconic AGA
brochures and
recipe sheets
How e AGA Became An Icon 9
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W T WREN
AGA Heat Ltd
managing director
Leader and innovator
Second World War
agent
Managing Director of
AGA Heat Ltd from early
1930s to 1950s, also
becoming Managing
Director and Chairman
of parent company Allied
Ironfounders. Through
the 1930s W.T. Wren
pushed the AGA cooker,
recognising its potential
impact. He said: “Owners
come to talk about and
regard their AGA as
though it were almost
a member of the
household – a fond
personality which has
won their affection.
Servants love it…so do I”
He felt so passionately
about the AGA that he
formed one of the
greatest cross-disciplinary
teams in UK industrial
history and expanded
across the country by
building a strong group
of registered distributers,
largely family concerns
and some with long and
important histories of
their own.
Every now and then someone captures the zeitgeist so perfectly they
become the centre of something truly extraordinary. W. T. Wren – or
‘Freckles’ as he was known – was one such man…
shaPiNg ThE fUTUrE
. T. WREN’s ability to see how the future
was shaping up and his skill in spotting
W
simply changed the way people lived and –perhaps
even more surprisingly – the eect can still be felt
today.
Wren was born at the turn of the century into a poor,
working class family, a fact he never forgot. He joined
the Chubb & Sons Lock and Safe Company as an
oce boy, but graduated to act as a representative in
India. From Chubb he went to Bell's Engineering
Supplies where, in 1929, he was put in charge of
selling the rst AGA cookers in Britain.
Such was his success that in 1932, when Bell’s became
AGA Heat Ltd, Wren was its MD, a role he still held
in the 1950s. By then, via a time as sales director, he
had become Managing Director and later Chairman
of the parent company, Allied Ironfounders Ltd.
He was a member of the Council of Industrial
Design (later to become the Design Council) and
his obituarist noted his unusual ability to see the
importance of design: “He was a man who
saw the value of high standards of industrial design
linked to expert salesmanship and social purpose at a
time when such attitudes were rarely held, let alone
applied to a large commercial undertaking.”
As well as realising the importance of great design,
Wren also understood the value of approaching marketing from an entirely new angle and this, combined
with his ability to bring together interesting people,
really were at the forefront of the success of the AGA
cooker, turning it from a simple domestic appliance
talent was so nely honed that he quite
1
into the icon it remains today.
In a strategy paper from 1933, Wren demonstrates
his innovative approach to marketing. He wrote…
“Words are sickeningly inept instruments of enthusiasm.
But perhaps, helped out by the photographs, I have given
you a fairly complete picture of this cray cooker.
“If you visit an AGA Showroom anywhere you will find
out a lot more and, more important still, you will get
what I cannot give you, the spirit of the AGA.”
Fieen years aer the introduction of the AGA to
Britain, Wren – who would be driven everywhere
in his Rolls-Royce with the licence plate AGA 1 –
was clearly aware he and his team had achieved
something special and signicant. He recognised that
the cooker had achieved a “unique place in the sun”
and had become a household name, an eponym
for all range cookers.
Wren returned from the war in 1945. In a report
written for the Executive Board, A Wider Base for
AGA, he described the progress the AGA cooker had
made during his time at the helm:
“It is now 15 years since the AGA was rst introduced
to this country...it has gained a unique place in the
sun and, in a certain eld, is a household word. No
other domestic appliance in the generation has
achieved so well a foothold. ose engaged in
launching it were...of the ‘traditional’ trade approach
for a product of this type; and probably just as well,
for had they followed the traditional line, it is
doubtful if AGA would have survived the course.
But it did survive and made so serious an
s
How e AGA Became An Icon 11
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W T WREN
impression on the trade that [others] have
followed AGA almost slavishly in marketing
methods.
“All this, to my mind, shows that there is
something new in the AGA way of marketing
a domestic appliance which is regarded as
both successful and necessary by our
competitors.”
In Wren’s obituary in Design, the journal of
the Council of Industrial Design, Richard
Carr wrote: “He [Wren] already believed in
the value of selling an appliance which used
1
only 3
/2 tons of coke a year instead of the 24
tons of coal consumed by the average kitchen
boiler.
“A meeting with Francis Ogilvy of Mather
and Crowther encouraged him to improve
the AGA still further by calling in Raymond
Loewy as the company’s design consultant
[see page 18]. is led to the development of
a complete range of well designed appliances,
including the Otto stove, named aer Carl
Otto who worked in Loewy’s oce, the
Rayburn and the AGAmatic domestic water
heater.
“e association with Mather and Crowther
also led to the adoption of outstandingly high
standards of writing, illustration and printing
for the company's literature, while Wren
followed his own clear policy on salesmanship, cutting down retail outlets and
appointing as agents only those builders'
merchants, ironmongers and even individuals
whom he could rely on to give expert service.
“He also introduced such ideas as a circular
on AGAs in Latin, and then in Greek, for
distribution to schools, and an exhibition in
two air conditioned railway coaches which
toured Britain in the 1950s to display the
company products.”
Wren also became an animated commentator
on social issues and, in combination with
organising travelling exhibitions, he
commissioned lms during the 1950s to
make local authorities aware of the need to
modernise Victorian slums and war-damaged
properties.
But perhaps Wren’s lasting legacy stemmed
from a remarkable ability to see design,
marketing and engineering ability and to then
assemble the right team for the times. He
knew by the late 1930s that the original AGA
cooker – introduced to Britain in the late
1920s – needed to be re-designed and
updated.
For this, he called in renowned American
industrial designer Raymond Loewy, who was
to go on to design the interiors of Concorde
for Air France and Air Force One for the US
government.
Wren was aware that the AGA cooker’s
unique selling points needed a unique sales
force. For this job, he turned to David Ogilvy,
who was to go on to revolutionise advertising
as the so-called King of Madison Avenue and
later to be the inspiration for TV’s Mad Men.
He was aware the times were changing and,
as domestic service in Britain declined, he
asked designer and domestic planning
advocate Dorothy Braddell to come up with
a functional new look for British kitchens.
He commissioned a series of cookbooks from
the celebrity chef of the day, Ambrose Heath,
which were illustrated by Edward Bawden,
who was to go on to become an artist of
major repute.
Over the coming pages we look at the visionaries
who made up Wren’s team, talented individuals
who succeeded in embedding the AGA cooker in
the British psyche.
q
W. T. Wren frequently hosted lavish
dinners at the Dorchester for AGA
distributors (above). The famous
London hotel was also used for
company meetings, as illustrated
by the extract (left) of the minutes
from a board meeting in 1945,
when it was agreed the discussion
should be “adjourned for lunch and
the meeting continued at the
Dorchester Hotel”
At the same meeting, the board
reviewed how the AGA cooker
had been launched in the UK
and concluded (left) that it would
not have been the immediate
success it had been if those
behind the project had been
prejudiced by accepted selling
practices of the time
A silver inkwell fashioned in
the form of an AGA cooker and
presented to W. T. Wren
by his colleagues in 1937
12 How e AGA Became An Icon
How e AGA Became An Icon 13
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DAVID OGILVY
AGA Heat Ltd’s first
salesman
Advertising genius
Inspiration for TV’s
Mad Men
Second World War spy
David Mackenzie Ogilvy
was born on 23 June
1911 at West Horsley,
Surrey in England. Ogilvy
attended Fettes College,
in Edinburgh. In 1929, he
again won a scholarship,
this time in history to
Christ Church, Oxford.
He left Oxford for Paris in
1931, where he became
an apprentice chef in the
Majestic Hotel. After a
year, he returned to
Scotland and started
selling AGA cookers
door-to-door. His success
at this marked him out to
his employer, who asked
him to write an instruction
manual, The Theory and
Practice of Selling the
AGA Cooker. Thirty years
later, Fortune magazine
editors called it the finest
sales instruction manual
ever written and Ogilvy
went on to become a
giant of advertising.
GETTY
IMAGES
In 1935, AGA Heat Ltd managing director W.T. Wren appointed his
Scottish sales rep to update how the cooker was being sold and
marketed. Showing impressive prescience, he had given international
advertising legend David Ogilvy his first big break…
ThE TENaciTY of a BULLdog,
ThE MaNNErs of a sPaNiEL…
By 1935, marketing of the AGA cooker had become
big business and the summer launch of the New
Standard AGA – a twin-oven model in cream aimed
at smaller households without domestic staff – saw
AGA Heat Ltd embark on a nationwide publicity
campaign to raise awareness of the brand within a
much broader audience.
For that launch, he used Mather & Crowther as the
advertising agents and specifically the talented Ogilvy
brothers, David and Francis. e decision proved to
be game-changing.
For Wren had again shown incredible prescience.
David Ogilvy’s guide to selling the AGA cooker –
e eory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker –
became the company’s sales ‘bible’ and was lauded by
Fortune magazine as ‘the best sales manual ever writt e n’.
modernity. It wasn’t a fad, a passing fancy. It looked
solid, it was solid. It was the Rolls-Royce of the
kitchen and people realised that very quickly.”
Ogilvy was the first AGA cooker salesman in
Scotland and rapidly established himself as a
formidable salesman. He was introduced to W.T.
s
David Ogilvy devised AGA cooker advertising and provided an explosive critique of the marketing of the parent company,
Allied Ironfounders. Revisiting the report in 1962, he wrote: “It proves two things: a) At 25 I was brilliantly clever; and
b) I have learnt nothing new in the subsequent 27 years.”
2
Ogilvy himself proved to be an advertising genius
who went on to found one of the world’s biggest
advertising agencies, Ogilvy & Mather. By the end
of his career he was known as the King of Madison
Avenue and he was the inspiration for the hit
television series, Mad Men.
Ogilvy, who occupied an office in the AGA Heat
building, was driven by a passion for the AGA cooker.
Later in his career, he said: “It was a special kind of
David Ogilvy pictured in 1938 on board a
ship bound for his new home in America
How e AGA Became An Icon 15
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DAVID OGILVY
Wren by his brother, Francis, and earned his spurs by
using his chef ’s uniform from his stint in a Paris
restaurant to persuade a London club to keep their
AGA cookers. It was with the 1935 launch of the
New Standard AGA that Ogilvy produced some
quite exceptional work in preparing the company
and its dealers for the launch and then providing the
required consumer literature.
In e eory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker
– setting out the argument on the attack and on the
defence when winning over a sales prospect – he
concluded that the successful salesman “needs the
tenacity of the bulldog and the manners of the
spaniel.
“If you have any charm,” he wrote, “ooze it”.
Francis Ogilvy (pictured left with his family, c 1950)
introduced his younger brother to W. T. Wren. Francis –
the leading player at advertising agency Mather &
Crowther and the force behind its regaining the AGA Heat
Ltd account in 1946 – was also a talented copywriter in
his own right and went on to become one of Prime
Minister Winston Churchill’s speechwriters during the
Second World War.
q
This ad creative – drawing on Édouard
Manet’s Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe – was
David Ogilvy’s first ever advertisement.
It demonstrates how the advertising
pioneer was not averse to esoteric and
challenging campaigns. Looking back
on it, however, he confessed it was
“some way short of his best”
BOARD MINUTES, June 1945
In these minutes (below) of a meeting of the board of
AGA Heat Ltd, a resolution is passed to “recapture the old
originality” of previous AGA advertising. Previous
advertisements had worked, the board agreed, because
the company had made liaison with their ad agency more
of a “personal affair”. The new campaigns would focus on
three main messages: the ease of using the AGA (lack of
servants); fuel economy (national lack of solid fuel); and
better cooking. With modern AGA advertising campaigns
focusing on the launch of new programmable models,
their improved fuel efficiency and the wonderful cooking
results that can be achieved, it would seem the AGA
legacy very much continues today
How e AGA Became An Icon
16
How e AGA Became An Icon 17
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THE WAR YEARS
a VErY sEcrET sErVicE
Called away from their work at the outbreak of the Second World War,
W. T. Wren, David Ogilvy and his elder brother Francis Ogilvy found
themselves volunteering for the murky world of counter-espionage…
W. T. Wren
e rst documentary evidence of W. T. Wren having
le AGA Heat Ltd to play his part in the Second
World War comes in an executive minute in which
it is agreed that his salary and bonus would –
reassuringly – be paid on the same basis as if he were
still carrying out his duties with the company.
Upon Wren’s return to the company in 1945 he is
referred to as Colonel Wren. Sources then mention
him being involved in dierent ways during the
war, most oen as an MI6 section V ocer
(counter-espionage) and eventually as Head of the
Security Branch in London of British Security
Coordination (BSC).
While Wren seems to have ended the War based in
London, he is recorded as having lived in Trinidad for
several years in the early 1940s as MI6 head of station
there. He travelled a lot, and is recorded as having
been in New York oen, as well as in Sweden (1939
and 1940), Canada (1942), and was in charge of
operations in Spain by 1943.
David Ogilvy
According to his biographer, Kenneth Roman,
David Ogilvy also worked for British Security
Coordination (BSC). In his book, e King of
Madison Avenue: David Ogily and the Making of
Modern Advertising, he writes that Ogilvy had been
moonlighting since 1939 as an adviser to the British
government on American public opinion. In 1942,
with the United States now embroiled in the Second
World War, he went to work full time in British
military intelligence, initially in New York. His new
boss in the spy business was Sir William Stephenson,
head of BSC and the central gure in covert
operations involving Britain and the United States in
the years leading up to the war. BSC was to represent
all British intelligence services in the Western
Hemisphere. A compelling personality, Stephenson
became a model for Ian Fleming’s famous secret
agent, James Bond 007.
Kenneth Roman writes: “A small man with piercing
blue eyes, the strong-willed Stephenson – Ogilvy
described him as “quiet, ruthless, and loyal”– took
on the dicult task of combining propaganda for
the British cause with intelligence work and
counterespionage and carving out a working
arrangement with American intelligence within
the limits of the Neutrality Act.
“Stephenson was not a professional spy, nor were
many of the people he recruited. His unlikely team
was largely comprised of enthusiastic amateurs
whose names and faces were not known to enemy
intelligence agencies. e team included actors Leslie
Howard, David Niven and Cary Grant, the movie
director Alexander Korda, author Roald Dahl (who
would later assist on a history of BSC) and Noel
Coward.”
“[David] Ogilvy was perhaps the most remarkable of
the younger men to join Stephenson’s BSC,” wrote
the man who recruited him, Harford Montgomery
Hyde in his insider’s book Room 3603.
He started his new job by attending a course for spies
and saboteurs at Camp X, ocially Special Training
School 103, a top secret British training school on the
north shore of Lake Ontario in Canada. ere, he
said, he was taught the tricks of the trade: how to
follow people without being observed, how to blow
up bridges and how to kill a man with his bare hands.
Instead of being parachuted behind enemy lines, as he
expected (or, more likely, feared), Ogilvy was placed
in charge of collecting economic information from
Latin America, to assist BSC agents in foiling
businessmen known to be working against the
Allies by supplying Hitler with strategic materials.
Ogilvy’s basic job, according to intelligence
expert Richard Spence, was to spin polling
information considered harmful
(or helpful) to British interests. BSC wanted results
that would steer opinion toward support of
Britain and the war – front-page stories that showed people were more
interested in defeating Hitler
than staying out
of war.
Spymaster Stephenson put
on record his high regard
for Ogilvy’s abilities –
“literary skill, very keen
analytical powers,
initiative and special
aptitude for handling
problems of extreme
delicacy,” adding that
“David not only made a good
intelligence ocer, but he was
a brilliant one”.
Francis Ogilvy
David Ogilvy was not alone. While he was at BSC,
his elder brother, Francis, was working in British
intelligence. He made a memorable impression on
one assignment in Scotland. Hyde talks about Francis
arriving “complete with black hat and striped trousers,
in a remote Scottish village, and, on asking the postmaster if he would accept two parcels of stores, was
promptly handed over to the police.”
Safely extricated from police custody, he went on to
serve in a less conspicuous but more inuential role.
When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940,
he dened one of the requirements for his sta as the
ability to write well, listing among several candidates a
professor of English at Oxford and “that man who’s
writing the bombing reports”.
It was Francis Ogilvy’s reports that Churchill had
been reading. For most of the Second World War,
Squadron Leader F. F. Ogilvy lived in the Cabinet
War Rooms, where he was on watch every night.
Kenneth Roman adds: “As he described it, you’d get
to sleep at some unearthly hour, the Old Man would
come down, shake you and dictate – not verbatim as
one would to a secretary, but in broad general terms,
outlining what he wanted to say, leaving it to the
transcriber to do the actual writing, in Churchillian
style. I want a cable to Roosevelt, Churchill might
say. Copy to Stalin, copy to the Joint
Chiefs of Sta. en he would
outline his ideas. ‘And have it
ready for me at breakfast’. ”
Francis Ogilvy believed,
when he started the
job, that he had some
talent as a writer. He
later said: “I realised I
couldn’t. But by the
time he [Churchill]
nished shouting at
me and educating me,
by the end I thought
perhaps I could.”
By 1945 he was back with
W. T. Wren working on
launches of the AGA cooker and
Rayburn cooker and helping his brother
set up the New York branch of the advertising agency.
e brothers remained close, with David writing
to Francis almost weekly to discuss personal and
business issues, including a paper proposing
irty-Nine Rules for advertising copywriters.
Kenneth Roman writes: “With his paper, [David]
Ogilvy took credit for reorienting Francis’s agency
away from “poetry, typography and nonsense” and
“an opportunity to patronize ne writers, modern
writers and typographers.” q
18 How e AGA Became An Icon How e AGA Became An Icon 19
Page 11
RAYMOND LOEWY
In 1936, the acclaimed industrial designer Raymond Loewy was
Designer
Innovator
Head of Raymond
Loewy Associates
Raymond Loewy (1893–
1986) was an acclaimed
industrial designer and
reputed to have been the
first to be featured on the
cover of Time magazine
(1949). Born in France,
he spent most of his
professional career in the
United States. Among his
most notable designs
were the Shell and BP
logos, the Greyhound
bus, Coca-Cola vending
machines and the Air
Force One livery. His
career spanned seven
decades and included
important design work
in the UK overseeing
the launch of the New
Standard AGA cooker.
Between 1936 and 1941
this team launched and
updated the New
Standard AGA cooker,
leading to the production
of a formidable portfolio
of technical innovations.
modern AGA cooker.
He was also responsible
for the look of the
Rayburn cooker.
GETTY
IMAGES
recruited by W. T. Wren to re-design the AGA cooker. It was a
master stroke with the new model launched in 1941 and still in
production three decades later. Here, we profile the influential
American designer and the talented design team he assembled…
dEsigNs oN ThE fUTUrE
e concept of industrial design, recognised as
a separate discipline, was introduced to Britain
from the United States prior to the First World
War. During the 1930s it was encouraging
interest and criticism in almost equal measure.
But by the 1930s – with industrial design and
production eciency becoming mainstream
subjects – W.T. Wren saw there was further
progress to be made with the AGA cooker and
decided the future of the AGA cooker’s look
should be shaped by a man with an international
reputation.
Wren decided on Raymond Loewy, widely
acknowledged since as one of the leading
designers of the 20th century. e work on
the future design of the AGA cooker would
be carried out under the auspices of the newly
founded London oce of Raymond Loewy
Associates.
In the broader eld of industrial design,
Raymond Loewy Associates had contracts with
140 clients in America and 60 in Europe. Loewy
maintained design studios in New York, Chicago,
London and Paris and for years the name
Raymond Loewy Associates was synonymous
with outstanding product and package design,
with its portfolio spanning the design of aircra
interiors, luxury ocean liners, buses, department
stores, architecture and supermarkets.
An expression was coined to describe the scope
of work of the Loewy organisation: "... in design,
everything from lipsticks to locomotives."
e London oce of Raymond Loewy
Associates was unique in Britain as the only
purely professional industrial design oce in the
country. It opened in 1936 and the extraordinary
relationship with Mayfair-based AGA Heat Ltd
began with the appointment of Carl Otto and
Douglas Scott as stylists for the company [see
page 23]. Loewy continued to work with
AGA Heat and its parent company – Allied
Ironfounders – until at least the 1950s.
Wren briefed Loewy to produce a new version
of the original AGA cooker, one which would
endure and become a kitchen icon. at vision
was fully realised in 1941 with the advent of the
Standard Model C AGA Cooker, a model which
would go on to remain in production until 1972.
Among the principal design changes were:
• A restyled front plate
• e top and bottom oven doors were
recongured to be the same size
• e rectangular grill over the auxiliary air inlet
and ash-pit door was styled for the rst time to
echo the size and shape of the two oven doors
• e door hinges and handles were modied
• e heat gauge was placed centrally
• e overall design was made signicantly
more ecient.
Wren’s vision – and skill in seeing real talent –
had again paid dividends, with the creation of
a brand new AGA cooker with the design
and engineering values to endure for three
decades.
q
How e AGA Became An Icon 21
Page 12
Douglas Scott (1913–1990) – an industrial
designer and educator – was employed at
the London office of Raymond Loewy
DOUGLAS SCOTT
Scott was particularly proud of his 1938 redesign of the AGA cooker and his
development of the Rayburn. It was a design that was to endure for the next
40 years. Scott’s influence during this period led to the development of greater
standardisation of the AGA cooker, a theme which ran through all of Loewy’s
work and which was later echoed in Scott’s design of London’s iconic and
much-loved Routemaster bus, which was
engineered to be mass-produced in a
sustainable way. The eventual Standard
Model C AGA cooker, illustrated on the
cover of Homes & Gardens magazine in
1940 (right) went even further than before
in its simplification and definition of the
cooker’s design. The AGA was also
proving robust in operation. The Antarctic
expedition team of 1934 took an AGA
cooker with them – a model SBD. All
existing models – both domestic and
heavy duty – were withdrawn in 1941
and in their place a range of units were
introduced with standardised parts
which were, to a much greater extent,
fully interchangeable. Scott’s vision of
uniformity had been achieved.
Associates between 1936 and 1939, where
his work was overseen by American designer
Carl Otto. Together they worked on the AGA
Heat and Allied Ironfounders accounts.
Charles Ludovic Scott
was the Technical
CHARLES
LUDOVIC SCOTT
assigned to renowned industrial designers, it was
Scott’s role to ensure the engineering of the cooker
received similar close attention. During the 1930s
more than 20 patents were filed for technical and
design innovations related to the AGA cooker and other products,
mainly by Scott, under the changing company names of Bell’s Engineering,
Bell’s Heat Appliances, AGA Heat and Allied Ironfounders. Scott is often
featured in brochures of the time advocating research and development and
explaining why they make the AGA cooker a market leader. Board minutes
highlight this determined work to ensure quality and reliability.
research Officer for
AGA Heat Ltd from
1929 until the late
1950s. With the task
of styling the AGA
cooker having been
Vintage advertising campaigns for the
AGA cooker (left and opposite page)
illustrate how – now as then – the
emphasis has always been on the
AGA cooker’s economy, design,
engineering and reliability.
How e AGA Became An Icon 23
Page 13
DOROTHY BRADDELL
After the First World War, life in the British kitchen began to change.
LAWRENCE WRIGHT
MABEL COLLINS
Redefining the kitchen
.
dEsigN gENiUs
ThaT chaNgEd
ThE BriTish
KiTchEN
for EVEr
As domestic service declined, the kitchen was no longer the domain
of servants, but of the housewife herself. AGA Heat placed its trust in
the design ethos for the kitchen in the hands of three visionaries –
Dorothy Braddell, Lawrence Wright and Mabel Collins
he kitchen changed during the early 20th
century from a prosaic workspace to an area
T
Modernity “crept in through the back door, via
the kitchen”
created the utilitarian Frankfurt kitchen, while in
Britain the AGA kitchen was to be as modern but
more user-friendly.
Rationally planned and industrially produced, the
emphasis of the ‘New’ Kitchen was placed on the
economic use of labour and resources. As the
household centred on a more self-sucient kind
of family life, the footprint of the home changed in
response. e kitchen was the rst area impacted by
social change.
which embodied modernist principles.
3
German time-and-motion studies
kitchen, changing the look and layout of a space which
was now clearly to be enjoyed rather than merely
endured. e 1930s kitchen was smaller but lighter
than its Edwardian counterpart. It was now no longer
the domain of employees but of the housewife herself.”
Designing the modern kitchen
A pioneer of domestic design, Dorothy Braddell
[Dorothy ‘Darcy’ Adelaide Braddell née Busse, 18891981] can be seen as the mother of the modern
kitchen. She studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic
and the Byam Shaw School of Art and became a
designer and critic of interior design and domestic
planning. She oen worked under her husband’s
name as Mrs Darcy Braddell.
Until the 1930s the kitchen was most oen a space
separate from family living. e homes of the more
auent households in Victorian England had
kitchens run by cooks as part of a team of domestic
sta. Middle-class Edwardian homes were still built
with a presumption that there would be a maid in the
house whose tasks would include cooking.
Although domestic service declined in the inter-war
years, it still represented the largest occupation for
women until the mid-1930s, when service went into
an irreversible decline. A 2004 study for London’s
Science Museum summarised the impact this was to
bring to the kitchen.
“In the space of about 25 years, the kitchen was
transformed om a transient place for the preparation
of food to the new heart of the home. By the end of the
1950s it was a multi-functional living space, as well as
the powerhouse and nerve centre of family life.
“e availability of new materials and nishes, as well
as modern electric appliances came together in the tted
4
Her work was included in pre- and post-war
exhibitions of British industrial art; she was on
the advisory committee of the Council for Art and
Industry; and she wrote essays and material for trade
publications such as e Gas Journal. She was also a
member of the Council of Scientic Management in
the Home, which formed in 1931, and she became a
design expert for the Ideal Home Exhibitions.
Her innovative kitchen designs for AGA Heat
Ltd were constructed for display at exhibitions
throughout the 1930s and 1940s and she was
specially commissioned to design the AGA Cookery
Advisory Department’s kitchen at the company’s
showrooms at 20 North Audley Street, London W1,
a building which, until the 1990s, retained the name
‘AGA House’ in certain circles.
One of the early exhibitions was the British Industries
Fair of March 1936. Contemporary minutes describe
the event as a huge success… “e AGA Exhibit
proed a very great attraction and their new models
were enthusiastically received by Merchants generally.
s
How e AGA Became An Icon
How e AGA Became An Icon 2524
Page 14
DOROTHY BRADDELL
LAURENCE WRIGHT
MABEL COLLINS
eir sales exceeded expectations, and
Mr Wren [Managing Director of AGA
Heat Ltd] is very well satisfied.”
e success of Braddell’s kitchen displays
led to her being given a wider role. A
minute of the time read: “An arrangement
is being made with Mrs Braddell which
will make her services available to Allied
Ironfounders in connection with designing
of goods and of Exhibition Stands.”
In the 1930s, Braddell redesigned a
traditional farmhouse kitchen for AGA
Heat Ltd, both versions of which were
exhibited on behalf of the company and
tied into marketing initiatives advocating
the importance of a planned kitchen, and
how well the AGA cooker would fit into
such an environment.
5
Painting a picture of the future of modern kitchens
Dorothy Braddell’s kitchen designs were painted – rather than simply photographed – by Lawrence
Wright (1906-1983), an author, perspective artist and major commentator on the home. He painted
kitchen images for AGA Heat Ltd from 1936 and (as illustrated here) they show that changes to the
styling of the AGA cooker were being introduced in the second half of the 1930s. The freestanding AGA
cooker, along with the black glass reflective walls and yellow curtains and piping make this kitchen
design feel thoroughly modern, although it is in fact almost 80 years old. The strength of the AGA
cooker in this kitchen living context was that it provided a natural centrepiece that was both practical
and beautiful. An advertisement of the time stated: "Here's a cool and collected kitchen designed by
Mrs Darcy Braddell. The small sink beside the cooker is for cook's convenience. Plenty of cupboards,
too, a big window and nowhere for dust or dirt to collect."
Braddell was impartial in her designs,
creating kitchens which used solid fuel,
gas and electricity. Her philosophy was
functionalist, based on commonsense
and practicality rather than any particular
affiliation.
She was, however, vocal in her support for
the AGA cooker.
“Solid fuel cookers have recently taken
on a new lease of life – or rather there
has been a renaissance in their design
and conception, thanks largely to the
introduction of a cooker of foreign
inspiration.
“is has set an equally high standard in
cooking performance and economy of
upkeep which remains difficult to beat.”
q
26 How e AGA Became An Icon How e AGA Became An Icon 27
Page 15
DOROTHY BRADDELL
LAURENCE WRIGHT
MABEL COLLINS
SERVING UP A NEW APPROACH TO
CONTEMPORARY KITCHEN LIVING
Painted by Lawrence Wright, this kitchen
is based on plans by a successor
or colleague of Dorothy Braddell –
Millicent Frances Pleydell-Bouverie
On 9 May 1873, the reclusive Queen
Victoria made a rare public appearance.
She attended a cooking lecture held at
the exhibition grounds close to London’s
Albert Hall. The Queen and princesses
were ushered into the exhibition’s
School of Cookery to observe the
preparation of a savoury omelette by
a male chef and four kitchen maids.
It was one of the very first cookery
demonstrations and years later AGA
recognised its value to customers.
Today, thousands every year enjoy
cookery demonstrations at AGA shops
throughout the UK. Back in the 1930s
it was a new idea and it was Mabel
Collins – as head of the new AGA
With the housewife now doing the
cooking the onus was on providing
achievable recipes for practical
everyday living and for entertaining and
that tradition continues today through
the AGA demonstration kitchens in
London’s Marylebone High Street and
Brompton Road.
Through Mabel Collins, AGA Heat Ltd
provided practical cooking information
to its customers. AGA Heat Ltd viewed
the provision of information for the
housewife as a major new avenue for
sales and owners of AGA cookers
received monthly or quarterly recipes to
reflect the time of year, with some of
these pictured (right)…
q
Cookery Advisory Department – who
was charged with changing Britain’s
view on food and cooking.
The Cookery Advisory Department
was formally introduced in 1935 in AGA
Heat Ltd’s North Audley Street, London,
kitchen appliance showroom. A
contemporary brochure states: “This is
the test and demonstration kitchen at
London. The head of the department
(Mabel Collins) moved her desk from her
private office into the kitchen ‘because
it was less stuffy’.”
28 How e AGA Became An Icon
Today, thousands
learn more about
the AGA cooker
through instore
demonstrations.
It is a tradition
begun in the
1930s with the
launch of the
AGA Cookery
Advisory
Department
with renowned
food writer
Ambrose Heath
retained as its
Gastronomical
Adviser.
All from
V&A
museum
How e AGA Became An Icon 29
Page 16
AMBROSE HEATH
Ambrose Heath was the Mary Berry of his day – a renowned food
Gastronome
Food writer
Cookbook author
Ambrose Heath
(1891–1969) was born
Francis Geoffrey Miller.
Because his parents
thought journalism an
unrespectable career,
he became known
professionally as Ambrose
Heath. The decision not
to use his real name
was taken, he told an
interviewer in 1966,
because his father was
a gentleman. “My
parents were supremely
uninterested in food,”
he later said.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
writer trusted by millions of British cooks. A big fan of the AGA cooker,
in the 1930s he joined AGA Heat Ltd’s pioneering Cookery Advisory
Department as Gastronomical Advisor…
ThE faThEr of ModErN food WriTiNg
National
Portrait
Gallery
oday it is tricky to imagine a world without
wall-to-wall cookery shows and books by
T
on a weekly basis. However, it wasn’t always so and
without the input of a few notable names it might
never have happened…
Arguably the first ever celebrity chef, Ambrose Heath
quite simply changed the way Britain cooked. He
penned more than 100 cookery books, offering up
recipes for an extraordinary number of foodstuffs
from the prosaic potato to the rather more exotic
squirrel and turtle. In 1933 Heath turned his hand to
AGA cooking with the publication by Faber & Faber
of Good Food on the AGA.
Brands appointing ambassadors is not a new
phenomenon and AGA Heat Ltd was justifiably
proud of its work with Heath, who was in at the start
before Bell’s Heat had even been acquired by AGA
Heat. e foreword to Good Food on the AGA,
celebrity chefs topping the bestseller lists
attributed simply to Bell’s Heat Appliances Ltd, says:
“In writing this book for AGA, Mr Heath has
achieved far more than we ourselves visualised when
the book was planned, for not only has he written
on the best way of securing the greatest use and
satisfaction from the cooker, but he tells of many
dishes singularly fitted for the preparation on it;
dishes which are gathered from the cuisine of many
lands and which will help to brighten our table.”
Aer the publication of the book, Heath’s association
with the AGA cooker continued to grow. In 1935
he was appointed e AGA Cookery Advisory
Department’s Gastronomical Advisor. In a letter
of the time which went out to distributors, Mabel
Collins wrote: “Mr Heath will give free advice to
owners on their cookery problems”.
Heath enjoyed his schooldays at the progressive
Clion College, though he did say: “I didn’t like
the formality of ordinary education. I was interested
in special things.”
s
How e AGA Became An Icon 31
Page 17
AMBROSE HEATH
EDWARD BAWDEN
Painter
Perhaps this is why he enjoyed
such a varied and colourful career, which included
working for the Hudson Bay Company, the India
Office and co-founding the Wine and Food Society,
before a quarrel with the then secretary caused him to
resign. His journalism began with a series of ‘casual
pieces’ submitted to, amongst others, e Times, News
Chronicle and the Yorkshire Post, before becoming
cookery correspondent for the Morning Post.
Ambrose Heath didn’t just write on the subject
of AGA cookery; he was a passionate AGA cook
himself. A 1933 AGA brochure stated: “For many
months now Mr Ambrose Heath has done his own
cooking and tested his professional recipes on an
AGA Cooker, and his enthusiasm is unbounded for
the AGA cooker’s cooking efficiency.
“He explains the various improvements made possible
by AGA cooking and the difference in method due to
the principle of AGA Heat Storage. He emphasises
especially the enormously increased leisure which the
AGA affords the Cook.”
In a 1939 brochure Heath speaks for himself:
“… I can say without exaggeration we have had much
better food since it was installed than ever before, the
reason being, I suppose, that it is
much easier to cook on. e AGA
seems to make one want
to cook…”
roughout the war years,
Heath was one of the main
voices of the BBC’s e
Kitchen Front. A series of talks
organised by the Ministry of
Food, Heath’s role was to
encourage frugality and ease
the hardship of rationing
with recipes, household
hints, exhortations from
government officials and
comedy. e themes
re-appear in 1946 in an
early Rayburn brochure.
e Kitchen Front was a platform to encourage the
population to make the most of meagre resources
and to keep healthy and its success lay mainly in its
homely and avuncular cast. e programme went
out at 8:15am every day and lasted five minutes.
e timeslot – widely considered to be a golden one –
was chosen as it was ‘before the housewife sets out to
do her shopping’.
Usually presented by Ambrose Heath and the popular
broadcaster Freddie Grisewood (known affectionately
as ‘Ricepud’) and contributed to by many, including
Marguerite Patten and Lord Woolton, it attracted up
to 14 million listeners, significantly more than any
other daytime talk programme.
In the first week alone the BBC received 1,000 letters,
along with parcels of cake and other gis from housewives responding to its tips. He had established an
AGA cookery tradition still continued today by,
amongst many others, Mary Berry, Lucy Young,
Amy Willcock and Louise Walker.
Heath’s later years were spent, with his much younger
wife Violet May, in Holmbury St Mary in Surrey, with
an AGA cooker and a flower garden, but no
vegetable garden. He died on 31 May 1969. q
Ambrose Heath’s Good Food on the AGA
(left) featured beautiful illustrations by
Edward Bawden, well-known for his
work with Twinings, Shell-Mex and
Fortnum & Mason, as well as
renowned London Transport creatives
which included posters during the
1930s and tile motifs for London Underground.
One day a week Bawden worked for the Curwen
Press, so perhaps he was instrumental in the
decision to create menus and recipe cards
(below) from Good Food on the AGA, which
were printed by the same company. During the
Second World War, Bawden served as an official
war artist in France and the Middle East.
Designer
AGA cookbook
illustrator
Edward Bawden (1903–
1989) was a renowned
painter and designer.
His design tutor was the
artist Paul Nash, while
other contemporaries at
the Royal College of Art
included Barnett Freedman,
Henry Moore and Douglas
Percy Bliss, who was to be
his future biographer. Among
Bawden’s accolades were
his appointment as Royal
Designer for Industry (RSA)
in 1949 and his election as
a Royal Academician in
1956. He was awarded a
CBE in 1946.
32 How e AGA Became An Icon How e AGA Became An Icon 33
Page 18
MARKETING
THROUGH THE
YEARS
Marketing campaigns through its 10 decades
illustrate beautifully how – despite huge
changes in the British kitchen – the AGA
cooker has remained very much at
the heart of the home.
1970s
2004
1950s
2013
1990s
1980s
1980s
1930s
1930s
2011
34 How e AGA Became An Icon How e AGA Became An Icon 35
Page 19
THE MODERN RANGE
aNd ThE iNNoVaTioN
coNTiNUEs TodaY…
The main factor that ensures the AGA cooker remains
both iconic and popular in its tenth decade is that it has
moved with the times and adapted to modern living.
It is easy to implement change for the sake of it or to
incorporate technology where it is not needed. This has
not been the case with the AGA cooker – each change
has been considered and has made a real difference to
the lives of AGA owners.
From the introduction of new fuel types to an on/off
A 3-oven AGA cooker in Heather pictured in a stunning
contemporary Bath home featured on TV’s Grand Designs
AGA that can be controlled via a smartphone app, the
AGA cooker has evolved to work brilliantly with changes
in domestic routine, just as it did in the turbulent 1930s.
Most AGA cookers sold today run on electricity, which
allows new markets to open up and for cooks worldwide
to enjoy the AGA cooker. China is a perfect example.
Until very recently kitchens there were simply work-
spaces, but now they are becoming rooms to live in,
rather like ours in the UK. It is because of this that the
AGA cooker is set to become a huge hit in the East.
How e AGA Became An Icon
36
Recent launches have included
the fully programmable AGA iTotal
Control (left) and (main image) the
new 5-oven AGA Total Control, the
biggest ever manufactured and
pictured here in a conservatory
kitchen in Wandsworth, London
How e AGA Became An Icon 37
Page 20
THE MODERN RANGE
soUrcEs, rEfErENcEs &
acKNoWLEdgEMENTs
A 3-oven AGA Total Control in
the kitchen at Spring Cottage,
Cliveden, which in 1963 was at the
heart of the Profumo affair
In 2011, AGA Rangemaster entered into a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with
Birmingham City University to establish a digital gallery of selected archive
material charting the AGA ‘look'. It is anticipated that the digital archive will make
a valuable contribution to the new Birmingham City Library.
Charlotte Whitehead – appointed as KTP associate and archivist – undertook the
principal research for this publication under the supervision of Dawn Roads,
cookery writer and head of the AGA demonstrator team (and, as such, a
successor to Mabel Collins)..
Charlotte and Dawn co-authored this booklet with Laura James and Tim James,
author of ‘AGA: The Story of a Kitchen Classic’. The booklet was designed and
produced by Mabel Gray.
Most of the images used are from the archives of AGA Rangemaster Group plc.
The Board minutes of Allied Ironfounders and AGA Heat from the 1930s and
1940s provided the backcloth to the research project.
AGA Rangemaster would like to thank the National Portrait Gallery; the Design
Council Archive (University of Brighton); Transco plc; Getty Images and the
Victoria & Albert Museum for permission to use photography and illustrations.
1. Carr, R. (1971). Obituary, Walter omas Wren (1901-1971). Design, Journal of the
Council of Industrial Design, no. 272, August 1971.
2. Raphaelson, J. (1986). e unpublished David Ogily – a selection of writing om the les
of his partners. Pub: e Ogily Group, Inc.
3. Morris, M. (1988). ings to do with shopping centres, in Sheridan, S. (ed.) Gras. P. 202.
4. Sugg Ryan, D. (2006). e vacuum cleaner under the stairs: women, modernity and domestic technology in Britain between the wars. Design and Evolution: e Proceedings of the
Design History Society annual conference, 2006 (Design History Society & Technical University Del, Netherlands)
5. Braddell, D. (1935). Kitchen Planning and Equipment. Architectural Design and
Construction, ol. 5, p. 123-130.
6. Clendinning, A. (2004). Demons of Domesticity: Women and the English Gas Industry,
1889-1939. Pub: Ashgate
To bring an icon home, visit www.agaliving.com
or call 0845 712 5207 to organise an
AGA cookery demonstration
38 How e AGA Became An Icon
How e AGA Became An Icon
How e AGA Became An Icon 39
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