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Oak plus coffee, but no oak coffee tables
Using oak to make furniture has been a common practice in Britain since the very earliest times and it might reasonably be assumed that, as coffee has been consumed in Britain since the mid 1600s, that oak coffee tables would have originated at this time.  But, as it so often the case with the history of furniture,  putting two and two together in this way does not add up to the right conclusion.    

Coffee tables, whether a solid oak coffee table or those made from any other type of material, did not appear until the Victorian era some 250 years later.  This is perhaps difficult to comprehend today when change appears to be happening at an exponential rate, but coffee drinking in the 17th Century was a public activity with the drinkers seated at tables in coffee houses.  It was only very much later that drinking coffee at home became the norm – perhaps due to the influence of the new, United States of America.  Entertaining guests to coffee in the morning room was perhaps the inspiration for coffee tables, rather than simply using side or occasional tables.   

As the affluent upper classes were the arbiters of taste, then these early coffee tables could have either been solid mahogany or perhaps of oak or beech with mahogany veneers.  Of course oak was still, justifiably, held in high regard and so the next ‘layer’ in society would have commissioned one of these new-fangled pieces of furniture but would have had an oak coffee table, rather than a mahogany or imitation mahogany piece.

The universal building material
Supplies of oak had been plentiful during the 16th and 17th Centuries when oak woodlands covered large parts of the country.  It had been the universal building material – the steel or plastic of its day.  Used for everything from buildings and furniture to carts and warships, in fact almost anything that was made would have had a version made of oak.  By the time of the Victorian age however, large tracts had been lost due to the demands of the Industrial Revolution for oak for smelting, coal mining (pit props) the railways (railway sleepers) and general construction.   

Fortunately there were still sufficient supplies to meet the demands for oak furniture and oak coffee tables of the middle and upper classes, but the cost of furniture grade oak meant the lower orders in society who were still able to afford furniture would have had to content themselves with furniture made from imported stocks of pine.   

Preserving Britains's oak woodlands
When Britain went to war in 1914 it had a major impact on the county’s remaining reserves of oak timber.  The new ‘industrialised’ form of trench warfare that existed across the Western Front devoured huge stocks of oak in the form of props and shoring needed to hold up the trenches. Oak woodlands were clear felled on a large scale to meet this huge demand.     

Following the end of the First World War it was realised that Britain’s woodlands were of strategic importance to the defence of the country.  Without adequate timber supplies, Britain could not have prosecuted the war.  As a direct consequence of this experience Britain set up its Forestry Commission in 1919 to protect and enhance Britain’s timber reserves.  Despite the efforts of the Commission, there was still a shortage of wood during the Second World War, to the extent that for a short period it was actually a criminal offence to make wooden furniture.

We do hope you have found your perfect Oak Coffee Table from our fantastic selection of Oak Coffee Tables.