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Leathersellers’ Review 2024–2025
From the Archivist
Kate Higgins Archivist
While the full range of the work involved in managing the Leathersellers’ archives, library and other heritage collections – from acquisition, organisation and physical preservation to outreach work and enabling access – has been undertaken this year, digitisation and conservation were two of the biggest focuses. This year we have been involved in two exciting digitisation projects that will greatly increase the accessibility of many of the Leathersellers’ most significant and information-rich records. The first of these is ROLLCO ( Records of London’s Livery Companies Online ), a freely accessible University of London-run online searchable database containing livery company apprenticeship and Freedom data up to 1900. Much preparatory work has been done over 2024–2025 to enable the addition of the Leathersellers’ data, which is anticipated to begin soon and will be undertaken by a data inputter working remotely using photographs of Freedom and apprenticeship register pages. The second project is module two of a digital educational resource produced by AM Digital, Trade in Early Modern London: Livery Company Records, 1450–1750 , which will enable study of early modern London through the
lens of livery companies and trade. Our participation has seen the off- site digitisation of the Leathersellers’ constitutional records, Court minutes, Wardens’ accounts and other financial records up to c.1750, with copies of the resulting high-quality images being provided to the Company. This module will be published in 2026. The latter project dictated the choice of items to be conserved this year. Some of the documents to be digitised were too fragile or damaged to be handled safely, or required cleaning or removal from unsuitable frames, and therefore needed pre-digitisation treatment. The Leather Conservation Centre did a sterling job of squeezing in the work around their preparations for moving to Leicester in summer 2025. Their work included strengthening the extremely fragile edges of pages of a 17th century draft Wardens’ accounts book; humidifying and reshaping extensive areas of creasing, folding and distortion, and filling in large areas of loss, in an 18th century draft Wardens’ accounts pamphlet; and removing a scroll of arms, crest and supporters of the Company, 1687, from its heavy, bulky frame, cleaning it and rehousing it in a conservation grade mount and frame. An important ongoing behind-the- scenes task of collections management
is the processing of transfers and deposits of archives and artefacts. While most of these are internal transfers of records from colleagues, over the past year there have also been external deposits such as those described in the Gifts and Acquisitions report, including the Honorary Freedom certificate of Sir Charles Warren – made an Honorary Freeman of the Company in 1887 – and photographs of the Leathersellers’ float in the Lord Mayor’s Show, 1937. We were pleased to benefit from the work of Archives and Collections Intern Clarice Ana Mihele, who joined us August-November 2024 in a varied role. Her biggest pieces of work were producing a shelf-list of the Colfe Library and creating detailed catalogue descriptions of largely uncatalogued records of historic trusts, but she also recorded acquisitions, created index records, answered research enquiries, wrote an article for the Review , and researched and presented a video for the Stories From the Archive video series, as well as other tasks. In the area of outreach and access, Liveryman Greg Jones’s admission as Aldermanic Sheriff in September 2024 provided an opportunity for Clarice and Archivist Kate Higgins to create an archival display at the Sheriffs’ Breakfast drinks reception, working at the Guildhall alongside archivists from The London Archives and the Drapers’ Company. Displays were also put out at various events at Leathersellers’ Hall throughout the year, from the annual Wardens’ and Stewards’ Briefing, a Charity and Education event and a visit from an archivist and curators from LSE Library to evening receptions for parents of Colfe’s School Year 7 and Year 8 students and Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools students. Autumn 2024 saw the Hall open up to the public for the annual Open
House festival, with tours attended by over 100 highly enthusiastic and appreciative visitors. Other attendees of Hall tours during the year included LFS and Colfe’s School Year 7s, a group of Prendergast Years 10 and 11 students, Court Assistant Angela Brueggemann and her guest Professor William Whyte, and the Tanners of Basel (Lions Club). A tour for Prendergast Year 13 History students preceded a learning session that gave them the rare opportunity to handle original historic documents and learn about these, the importance of primary sources and the jobs of archivists, curators and rare book librarians in managing them. It is always wonderful to see the archives and library being consulted by researchers, whether academics, university students, family historians or those researching their local history. Topics of research this year included the history of the Holder and Pullman families; the Gladman family of 18th century London-based trunkmakers; the Ponder family, particularly Past Master John Edwin Ponder and member (and Company-sponsored researcher into anthrax) Dr Constant Ponder; Ralph Gardiner, plasterer, and Albert James Denley Watts, leather goods manufacturer; the refurbishment of the second Leathersellers’ Hall; the history of Colfe’s almshouses in Lewisham; and John Day’s typefaces used in the London Polyglot Bible. As well as being consulted for in-person research the archives were used extensively to respond to internal and external research enquiries. The subjects explored were many and varied, ranging from goldsmiths’ work in the late medieval period, historic Freemen William Dicey and John Cluer Dicey, the defunct leather companies Mitchell & Co. and W. Hurwitz & Co., John Milton’s copy of a book in the Colfe Library Purchas his Pilgrimes and attendance
at the Leathersellers’ Technical College in Bermondsey, to the historic female member Joyce Leedes and her apprentice Joyce Fisher; William Ward, resident of Whitechapel or Clerkenwell in the 17th century; Past Master and benefactor Richard Thornton; 17th century printer George Croome; and Barnet playing fields. Leather UK archive catalogue May-July 2025 saw the employment of a Project Cataloguer, Rebecca Darnill, to catalogue the archive of Leather UK, its predecessors and related bodies before the archive’s move to the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University, later this year. The archive was originally at the Museum of Leathercraft (now the Leathercraft Trust) in Northampton, but it moved temporarily to Leathersellers’ Hall last year to accommodate Dr Ian Stone, an academic sponsored by the Leathersellers to research and write a book on the history of the British leather industry. His research was responsible for drawing attention to this nationally important archive and the need to conserve and catalogue it properly for future researchers. Working at Leathersellers’ Hall under the supervision of Kate Higgins, Becky’s role involved ensuring the accessibility and preservation of the Leather UK archive in a number of ways, from cataloguing and repackaging material to removing duplicate documents and checking which items need conservation. Becky’s post and the cost of 150 new archival standard boxes acquired to house the archive were jointly funded by the Leathersellers’ Company and the British Leather Industry Development Trust.
Left: Intern Clarice Ana Mihele presenting an episode of Stories from the Archive
Right: Project Cataloguer Rebecca Darnill (left) and Dr Ian Stone reviewing items from the Leather UK Archive
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