Evolution
Pete
I am now wandering into the fields of speculation but I think it was more a matter or evolution than anything else - that an the fact that the UK is an island. This style of oven layout was not seen in Euroope either - to the best of my knowledge.
I think a lot of it stems from the fact that we did not have any tradition of having the grill (broiler) in the oven. Right from the earliest days of electric cookers the grill was usually combined with a large rectangular hot plate on the hob. The grill element was lattice of spiral wound wire which would glow red hot when switched on - rather like electric heaters. To use it as a grill a special pan with a wire tray would be inserted on runners underneath it. As a hotplate (and it was pretty useless as such) a reflector would be inserted instead. So it was common to have a cavity under the hob for the grill - this space could also be used for warming a few plates as well either from heat from the grill or from the oven underneath.
So there was no "top" element in the oven to start with, so no inducement to supplement this with a bottom element. Add to this that in most early electric cookers (from the 1920s onwards) the control panel was placed adjacent to the oven which would narrow the space even more - remember that most cookers (except the most luxury models) would only have been 20-24 inches wide - so the ability to place something like two cake pans side by side was practically impossible, so this design may have been adopted to assist in the distribution of heat and make the temperature more uniform, particularly in comparison to gas, with whom there was a great rivilary - gas being more established in the market to begin with.
There was also the added benefit that the panels were easily removeable for cleaning - stay clean linings only arriving in the early 1970s - you will see from the picture I posted above that, although the Moffat oven has been well used, the oven walls behind the linings are spotless and I am sure they were never cleaned.
With the almost universal adoption of eye level grills in gas cookers at the end of the 1950s some electric cookers followed that same style (and some with ovenettes/rotesseries as discussed above), while others retained the under hob grill (the hob having 3 or 4 coil elements as seen in the USA/Canada and the grill entirely independent) and usually a stoarge compartment or drawer under the oven - this sometimes had a heating element too. As time went on, especially with larger models (and I am talking 21/22 inch wide vs 18/20inch), the grill cavity was made larger and the oven lowered, at the expense of the storage compartment underneath - a definate case of form over function as not only did you lose the storage space, but the oven was also significantly lower. There was now almost always a drop down door over the grill compartment too so inevitably, as a means of adding more features, the compartment became more insulated and the grill was combined with a fully thermostatically controlled smaller oven - and so our tradition of double ovens was established and continues to this day and almost universally too. Ironically, this arrangement used top and bottom heat, although the bottom element (if there was one) was not exposed this is the common arrangement in European ovens.
This carried on up to the mid 1980s or so. By this time the UK designs were starting to look very long in the tooth and, as the market for kitchen renovations really took off, there was a wide scale adoption of European and particularly the German Neff and Bosch ovens - often bundled in as part of the renovation package. The common arrangement, when not having split level, was to have a single oven (which could equally been used as a wall oven) built in under a hob. In many respects this was a retrograde step for not only were there no easily removeable or stay clean linings - heat was top/bottom or fan (convention) and the grill was in the oven, but it was a return to the hated solid rings which had been phased out in the UK 20 years before in favour of more controllable coil rings. Coil rings seem to have never been adopted in Europe - I wonder why?
As the UK manufactured units struggled against European imports (and some a great deal cheaper and far inferior quality to the Neff/Bosch units) this apparently unique oven arrangement seems to have died away - aided and abetted by the almost universal adoption of fan ovens in all but the very cheapest units. The fan arrangement did not require the side mounted elements so the walls of the oven could be moulded to fit the shelves or what seems to be much more common now and much cheaper to manufacture - wire grids on each side to support the shelves. In fairness these do make the ovens easier to clean as well.
I cannot think of a free standing standard sized cooker which offers combinations of top/bottom and fan cooking -its either one or the other and mostly fan. It is quite common in wall ovens to have a choice of one type or the other - apparently top/bottom is consider better for baking than fan, although personally I prefer fan (convection) for everything.
Finally, there is one bit of the British legacy which does live on, that of the double oven. The development of wall ovens here largely mirrored that of free-standing and indeed a lot of components were shared between both. The oven with separate grill compartment was universal until the mid-late 1970s when Belling brought out its Formula range of separates which for the first time included a single oven combined with grill. Fan ovens and double ovens also appeared - actually somewhat ahead of their freestanding equivalents, but then split level was more upmarket. There were European varities of this as well both oven and a half (full size oven and snaller oven grill) or true double ovens.
The standard European single oven was around 60cm high which, when "built under" fitted into a cavity 70 or more commonly 72cm high. The gap was usually filled by a blanking panel or sometimes a drawer. But from the mid 1990s (I think) came models for building under which were 72cm high, now with a smaller oven/grill and a second "main" oven - larger than the oven/grill but not as large as a standard single. And I can only think that this came from British demand for the double oven as there was certainly no such European tradition in free standing models that I can think of and yet pretty much all the manufacturers have them (and sometimes more than one model) in their line up.
To me, when built under, its the worst of all worlds for not only is the main oven set very low, but its also small as well. But i did use one of these as a wall oven for a while and it was quite good but I found I did not use the smaller oven at all, and the main oven was a bit small for my baking so discarded this for another arrangement which I am very happy with indeed.
Finally, a photo I snatched off eaby - this is an English Electric Rapide cooker from the late 1960s/early 1970s showing off its removeable oven linings.
Sorry, this appears to have turned into a novel - hope it was interesting
Al
