New archive resource for leather industry
09/09/2013
The 87-year-old association had started life as the Leather Importers, Factors and Merchants Association to represent the industry at government level during the 1914-1918 war, and at one time boasted some 200 members. In 1940, LIFMA was again involved with the government, operating its sole leather reservation pool during World War II, inspecting, storing, pricing and distributing leathers to the country’s shoe manufacturers. It was an operation that, in current day values, was worth some £900,000,000.
In 1971, LIFMA amalgamated with the UK’s Hide & Skin Shippers and Agents Association to form SHALTA. The International Contract for trading raw, semi-processed and finished leather worldwide resulted from its work; it is still in use and administered by ICHSLTA, The International Council of Hide, Skin and Leather Traders Associations together with the ICT, The International Council of Tanners.
Together with his wife Carole, Tony Cox ran SHALTA's affairs for its last 13 years. Tony died subsequent to its closure, but Mrs Cox, having kept the documents for the statutory and legal period has now completed cataloguing all relevant papers concerning the organisation and has passed them to the City of London’s Metropolitan Archives. In January 2014, details of the records will also be available on the UK’s National Register of Archives, which provides a search engine for anyone wishing to research the leather industry.
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