Lucian Ercolani

Ercolani founded Ercol in High Wycombe and, after winning a wartime contract for 100,000 cheap utility chairs, worked out how to bend and machine-turn elm and beech for mass production of the traditional Windsor chair. The result, from the late 1940s, was light, sturdy, affordable kitchen and dining furniture: stick-back chairs, nests of tables and the stacking Butterfly chair. It suits small British homes, scuffs gracefully and is easy to find second-hand, which is part of why it never went away. The company still makes many of his designs.