Antique Wind Out Tables
       
Joseph Fitter of Birmingham is often famed for the originating patent of the steel winding mechanism for Victorian wind out dining tables but there are earlier instances of steel winders of unidentified manufacture from much earlier than the post 1845 Joseph Fitter winder. Needless to say however Mr Fitter became an extremely wealthy chap producing his winding mechanisms and crank handles for the whole UK production of extending tables through to 1910.

The antique extending table with runners itself was a much earlier design from George IV period, through William IV and an absolute design convention during the Victorian period. With a series of reducing box section runners with a male and female tongue the dining tables of the period extend from a closed state of approximately 5ft length and extending up to lengths of 26ft. The wind out mechanism obviously helped enormously driving such a weight of table and system but also allowed for a single person to adjust table length appropriately for guest numbers. The Victorian period had its social etiquettes and for mostly the requirement to seat people both according to social position and by spacing appropriately around a dining table. Not all households, since the emergence of the middle classes, had a Jeeves in the house so the steel winding mechanism was solution to staffing also.

Until 1880 most antique wind out tables surviving today would be in the fashionable mahogany of the times and post this date, as we lost the Colonies providing the mahogany, the extending tables were made in oak to the Arts & Crafts taste, Jacobean or Gothic influences.

As the UKs only specialist in antique windout tables Elisabeth James would typically have in stock 200+ original tables in stock in lengths of 3, 4, 5 metres or more so a visit to our antique furniture warehouse just north of London is an incredibly interesting visit for most people looking for genuine antique dining tables.