Campaign Towel Rail

A teak Towel or Clothes Rail made to dismantle for travel.

The Army & Navy CSL described this piece of portable furniture in their 1883 catalogue as a Portable Single Rail Towel Horse and were still selling it in 1907. It is a relatively simple but practical piece of furniture that dismantles easily. The two uprights are cut with mortice joints to receive tenons to the ends of the horizontal bars. The top and bottom bars have hidden, inset nuts to their ends to take a steel bolt with a gilt brass thumb head. The middle bar is simply fitted by its tenons, held in place when the top and bottom bars are fixed by the four bolts that pass through gilt brass plates to the uprights.

The bars are numbered to their undersides 1 to 3 to identify their position to similar numbers stamped to the inside of the uprights. The bars are also stamped 9 in two places and the middle bar has the additional longer number of 21448. One of the uprights is stamped 8 to the underside of its foot whilst the other is marked 9. Such longer number are often seen on campaign furniture produced by the A&N CSL.

A double towel rail, with two horizontal bars to the top was also available and both would have been useful in camp for hanging clothes as well as towels. Late 19th Century.