Leathersellers’ Company funds technology for new Lon - leatherbiz: Lea Leatherbiz

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Leathersellers’ Company funds technology for new London Leather Hub

05/10/2017
A social enterprise and business incubator for craftspeople in London, Cockpit Arts, is to open a new Leather Hub. This dedicated facility for artisans working with leather is the result of support from one of London’s ancient leather trade bodies, the Leathersellers’ Company. The Leathersellers’ Charitable Fund provided funding for new equipment that will make it possible for the artisans who work at Cockpit Arts to make their products more efficiently and to expand their collections.

Master of the Leathersellers, Antony Barrow, presided at a formal opening ceremony for the new leather hub on October 5, with one of the resident leather craftspeople, Charlie Laurie, demonstrating how the new machinery works.

Technology on site at the Deptford facility now includes a splitting machine, a skiving machine, a guillotine, clicking press and a hot-foil blocking machine.

Cockpit Arts has been working in partnership with the Leathersellers’ Company since 2012 and the company supports an annual series of awards to individual leatherworkers based there. For the new project Cockpit Arts also received a capital grant to create the Leather Hub.

Advice about equipment that would be suited to the facility cam from specialist London-based interior designer Bill Amberg, one of the most respected names in contemporary British leathercraft and a trustee of Cockpit Arts.

Speaking before the opening event, Charlie Laurie said: “The Leather Hub has played a massive part in the development of my work. Since we have had the new machinery, I have been able to take on larger orders and have a much quicker turnaround date. The clicking press has helped massively in the cutting process. Before the new press was installed, I was having to cut all the leather by hand making it a very long process; now it takes me much less time.”

He added that the splitting machine has also helped his work tremendously. Previously, had to sacrifice a day’s work to “trek across London” to use a borrowed machine. “Having one in the studios has had a great effect on my production time,” he added.

On behalf of the Leathersellers’ Company, charities and education officer, Geoff Russell-Jones, said that, as the founding organisation of the Leathersellers’ technical college in Bermondsey in 1909 (the predecessor to the University of Northampton’s Institute for Creative Leather Technologies), the organisation is “extremely proud to once again be supporting the development of leather skills and entrepreneurship in south London”.

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