Leathersellers funds project to archive industry documents
As part of the Leathersellers’ ambition to protect, share and celebrate the national history of British leather, a project to catalogue the archive of Leather UK has begun.
Dr Ian Stone, who has been funded by the Leathersellers to write a book about the history of the British leather industry 1800-2000, discovered the importance of the archive.
It was originally at the Museum of Leathercraft (now The Leathercraft Trust) in Northampton before being moved to Leathersellers’ Hall last year.
A cataloguer, Rebecca Darnill, has started work on the project, which will be completed prior to the archive’s move to the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University later this year.
Dr Stone says: “What this archive shows, and what we still see today, is that the Leathersellers are very close to their trade. They have supported the British leather industry in a number of different ways, not just through providing grants and expertise but also offering their Hall for the trade organisations to convene and working in close collaboration with various institutes to achieve nationally important outcomes, for example, the establishment of the Leather Trades School in Bethnal Green in 1887, the Leathersellers’ Technical College in Bermondsey in 1909, and the National Centre for Leather Education in 1976, which would become the Institute for Creative Leather Technologies at the University of Northampton.”
The cataloguing project is being jointly funded by the Leathersellers and the British Leather Industry Development Trust.
Image: Rebecca Darnill with Dr Ian Stone
