THE CLOTHWORKERS’ COMPANY
MASTER
Mr Tom Ingham Clark
WARDENS
Mr Denis Clough
The Hon Mary Ann Slim
Mr David Hutchins
Mr Hugo Robinson
COURT OF ASSISTANTS
Mr John Coombe-Tennant
Mrs Joanna Dodd
Mr Melville Haggard
Miss Katharine Hirst
Mr Dan Jago
Mr Michael Jarvis
Mr Peter Jonas
Mr James Langley
Col Alastair Mathewson OBE
Mr Deepak Nambison
Mr Alex Nelson
Mrs Susanna O’Leary
Sir Jonathan Portal, Bt
Mr Philip Portal
Dr Lucy Rawson
Dr Cordelia Rogerson
Mr Andrew Strang
Mr Hanif Virji
Mr John Wake
Mr Andrew Wates
Mr Robert West
Mr Timothy West
Mr Andrew Yonge
HONORARY ASSISTANT
Mr Andrew Blessley
The Clothworkers’ Company
First Floor, 16 Eastcheap
London EC3M 1BD
+44 (0)20 7623 7041 Enquiries@Clothworkers.co.uk
CLERK TO THE COMPANY
Jocelyn Stuart-Grumbar
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT AND COMPANY GRANTS OFFICER
Emma Temple
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE, PROPERTY AND INVESTMENTS
Hamesh Patel
FINANCE MANAGER
Michelle Jex-Brown
FOUNDATION DIRECTOR
Jenny North
HEAD OF COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES
Jessica Collins
HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS & MEMBERSHIP ENGAGEMENT
Renée LaDue
HOSPITALITY COORDINATOR & STEWARD
Heather Rawlins
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
MISSION, VISION & VALUES
The Clothworkers’ Company is a 500-year-old philanthropic membership organisation with roots in the textile trade. Established by Royal Charter in 1528 through the merger of The Fullers’ Company and The Shearmen’s Company, we were founded to promote the craft of clothworking in the City of London. We supervised the training of apprentices and protected standards of workmanship.
IMPACT REPORT
IMAGE CREDITS
Cover: Designer bookbinding of Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker: Surviving the Great Fire of London by Dominic Riley. Read more on page 28.
Left: Display of textile dyes and colour science at the LITAC building, Leeds University.
Today, our MISSION is to inspire and empower individuals and communities through action, partnership and financial support. We are particularly focused on UK textiles, charity governance, and philanthropy. Our VISION is to build on our history and legacy of fellowship and generosity, whilst becoming increasingly responsive, adaptive to change, outward looking and ambitious. We want our members to be proud of being a part of our livery company, and to understand their responsibility in encouraging and nurturing the next generation of Clothworkers, inspiring one another to deliver our best. This vision is founded on our VALUES, and our aspiration to be progressive, collaborative and sustainable in all that we do, internally and externally.
The Clothworkers’ charitable giving is principally channelled through our grantmaking charity, The Clothworkers’ Foundation, established in 1977 with a significant endowment from The Company. Additionally, The Company makes an annual donation to The Foundation. In 2023, The Foundation awarded grants in excess of £9.27 million to organisations supporting people and communities facing disadvantage and marginalisation. The Company made a donation of £18.9 million to The Foundation in 2023 (including an extraordinary gift of £16.8 million, at the end of the year).
Additionally, The Clothworkers' Company directly awards grants in support of textiles and trusteeship across the UK, a selection of military affiliates, and other charitable causes. This publication covers our key areas of grantmaking –which amounted, in 2023, to nearly £0.37 million (not including the donation to The Foundation). Our Annual Review aims to illustrate what we have done to fulfil our mission, improve impact across our grantmaking activities, and uphold our values.
An annual financial summary is published in the Members' Supplement for Clothworkers.
INDUSTRY MISSION (TEXTILE GRANTS)
Academic Research and Innovation
University of Leeds, LITAC (£8.9m, 2021-31) ............................................................................................................
UAL, Central Saint Martins (MA, Material Futures) ..................................................................................................
National Museum of Scotland (£30k committed over 2022-2024) .......................................................................
Technical Education and Vocational Support
Textile Centre of Excellence, Fashion Academy ......................................................................................................
University of Huddersfield, Undergraduate Bursaries (BA/BSc Textiles Practice) ........................................
UKFT, Export Promotion (£170k over 2023-2025) .....................................................................................................
The Weavers’ Company, Entry to Work Scheme .........................................................................................................
UKFT, Careers Fair 2023 ......................................................................................................................................................
UKFT, Made It 2023 ..............................................................................................................................................................
Cockpit Arts, Clothworkers’ Award for Weavers (£66k over 2023-25) ...............................................................
Dovecot Studios, Weaving Apprenticeship Scheme (£60k over 2023-26) ........................................................
Making It in Textiles (third-year textiles student conference and mill visits) ...................................................
£15,000
UKFT, Sustainability Conference (with the Textiles Livery Group) ....................................................................
£10,000
UKFT, Young Textile Technician Fund ...........................................................................................................................
£10,000
UKFT, Apprenticeship Review .............................................................................................................................................
£2,500
Whitchurch Silk Mill Trust ...................................................................................................................................................
£2,000
Heritage and Conservation
Textile Conservation Centre (MPhil bursary) ..............................................................................................................
£31,000
Historic Royal Palaces, Textile Conservation Internship (£36k over 2021-23) .....................................................
£8,000
Textile Design and Craft
UAL, Central Saint Martins (Clothworkers' Insights Bursary) .............................................................................
£20,000
Bradford Textile Society Design Competition ................................................................................................................
New Designers, The Clothworkers’ Company Associate Prize (Printed Textile Design Award) ................
£5,650
£1,000
Please note that this grants report is intended to illustrate the breadth and diversity of our charitable giving in 2023, particularly within our key areas of interest. It is not a comprehensive list of our grantmaking or charitable giving, which may also include commitments made in previous years or smaller donations to a variety of organisations, and it may not reflect the figures reported in financial documents due to the way commitments and liabilities may be recorded in our accounts. Clothworker members may see a financial breakdown of The Company’s income and expenditure (including ‘Mission’ costs) in the Members’ Supplement.
CHARITABLE
Trusteeship
Reach Volunteering ...............................................................................................................................................................
Charity Governance Awards (15 cash prizes) ...............................................................................................................
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) (trustee seminars, 2022-23) ...............................................................................
Cause4, Trustee Leadership Programme (2023-24) ..................................................................................................
Military Affiliations
Scots Guards, Soldiers and Family Welfare programme ..........................................................................................
FANY (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps), Operations Officer Salary (£90k over 2023-25) ......................
HMS Dauntless, Community and Wellbeing programme .......................................................................................
No. 47 Squadron RAF, Family Welfare programme ...................................................................................................
Army Cadet Force, 41 Cadet Detachment Dagenham (£9k committed over 2021-23) .....................................
Other Charitable Grants
No Going Back ........................................................................................................................................................................
Camden School for Girls (£60k over 2023-25) ............................................................................................................
Designer Bookbinders, Licentiate Pilot Scheme ..........................................................................................................
The Creative Dimension Trust (£50k over 2022-24) .................................................................................................
The South House Silver Workshop Trust, Postgraduate Silversmithing Scholarships .................................
St Paul’s Cathedral, Chorister Bursary (£40k over 2020-23) ...................................................................................
The Lord Mayor’s Appeal ....................................................................................................................................................
Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Council, Competition Prize .....................................................................................
Bishopsland Educational Trust, Silver Recycling and Bursaries (£24k over 2022-25) ..................................
Aldgate School (£22,500 over 2023-2025) ........................................................................................................................
Turkey and Syria Earthquake Appeal ................................................................................................................................
City & Guilds Foundation, Intertrain (£25k over 2021-2025) ....................................................................................
Southwark Archives, Conservation of the Mary Datchelor Girls' School Archive ............................................
The Children's Magical Taxi Tour .......................................................................................................................................
Designer Bookbinders UK Bookbinding Competition ...................................................................................................
The Clothworkers’ Foundation
The Company's surplus is donated to The Clothworkers’ Foundation (including match-funding for members’ contributions to our Clothworker Members' Fund) ........................................................................
*This does not include the extraordinary donation at the end of the year.
£12,000 £10,000 £10,000 £10,000 £10,000 £7,500 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £1,500 £750
£1.06m*
TEXTILE GRANTS & CHARITABLE
GIVING IN 2023 ≈ £1.4 MILLION
TEXTILES
Over the past decade or more, The Company and, formerly, The Foundation have contributed in excess of £20 million towards textiles, including an investment of £8.9 million to co-fund the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC). Aside from our investment into LITAC (committed in 2021), grants for 'Technical Education and Vocational Support' as well as 'Heritage and Conservation' have accounted for the largest share of our distribution of funds.
The Clothworkers' Company is responsible for the direct administration of its contributions and grantmaking towards textiles (ie, the grantmaking of The Clothworkers' Foundation is separate, and directed towards different programme areas). Our expenditure towards textiles is considered The Company's 'Industry Mission'.
Ground-breaking innovation is happening in textiles, and investment in the skills that help bring this innovation to market is required. Our Textiles Sub-Committee is responsible
for developing our grantmaking strategically in order to champion textiles and make meaningful contributions to support the industry.
TEXTILES STRATEGY
The Company aims to:
• prioritise British textiles;
• focus on cloth, rather than costume, and on the manufacture of cloth;
• direct our involvement in textile design towards talented students at higherrated institutions, with an interest in people who are studying or possess the ability to convert ideas into a product capable of being manufactured, as well as an understanding of textile technologies;
• rigorously explore the prospective usage of equipment that we fund;
• direct our support in heritage towards cataloguing, indexing, storing, conserving, displaying and improving access to important textile collections and archives.
Right: The Clothworkers' Archway, leading to the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour main building at Leeds University.
TEXTILES
ACADEMIC RESEARCH & INNOVATION
In 2012, we helped to establish the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH) at the University of Leeds, with a £1.75 million anchor donation. The Centre works to develop enabling technologies based on advances in textile science and engineering. From bioactive wound dressings that are capable of speeding up healing rates in the management of diabetic ulcers, to implantable devices able to promote the regeneration of bone or skin – the application of textiles in healthcare is a rapidly developing field.
Working with nurses, orthopaedic, dental and cardiovascular surgeons to identify unmet needs in current clinical procedures, the CCTMIH team is developing physical prototypes that overcome the performance limitations of existing products.
The Company has been a principal supporter of the Textiles and Colour Science activities at University of Leeds since they were established. In 2021, we made our largest-ever commitment to the university, investing £8.9 million (over 10 years) into the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC).
In addition to this capital funding, we have continued to provide bursaries for a number of postgraduate students at Leeds and beyond. In 2022, we committed an additional £292,500 to fund, for three years (through 2025) 14 undergraduate and postgraduate student bursaries (both for achievement and affordability) in the Fashion
Design, Sustainable Fashion, and Texile Sustainability and Innovation programmes.
Finally, we awarded £15k towards the UAL Central Saint Martins MA Material Futures programme, supporting a bursary for the twoyear postgraduate course and an award for a final-year project focused on textiles.
UKFT used a series of careers fairs to promote opportunities in the industry to young people aged 14 to 24. Skills London was held at the Excel Centre in November, attracting approximately 35,000 visitors.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION & VOCATIONAL SUPPORT
Breakthrough ideas in textiles – and materials more widely – must satisfy the demands of sustainability and, where possible, bring a societal benefit for future generations. For exciting innovation to make the journey from concept to
commercial success, laboratory to the marketplace, it is important to nurture the technical skills that enable apprentices, students and trainees to succeed.
Last year, a grant of £100,000 to the Textile Centre of Excellence supported its move to a new location as well as the development of its Fashion and Textile Academy,
UKFT had live jobs board at the Skills London fair, promoting local opportunities. At the same time, it offered demonstrations and hands-on activities to encourage young people to explore the industry and learn new skills.
which has invested heavily in new equipment and programmes to support its work. The Academy is a vital industry resource, as it delivers hands-on learning and skills development for those at the beginning of their textile careers, as well as those looking to upskill and move to the next stage in their work. Additionally, the Academy is taking advantage of its new hub to expand its provision of digital and virtual skills development programmes, with a significant portion of our grant funding work on programme development, a virtual learning and engagement platform, and digital infrastructure.
More than a third (35%) of our funding under Technical Education and Vocational Support was awarded to initiatives implemented by the UK Fashion and Textiles Association (UKFT). In 2022, we committed £170,000 (over three years) to enable UKFT to promote British textiles and build its reputation abroad.
Other UKFT initiatives promoted opportunities within UK textiles, improved employability, supported skills development, and facilitated on-the-job training. For instance, a grant of £25,000 supported the MADE IT programme, which aims to enrich the production and
TEXTILES
sourcing knowledge of textiles graduates and promote the wealth of technical and creative roles available across the supply chain. Working with five universities, the programme delivers a masterclass in Production and Sourcing, which culminated in a competitive final project. The prize for top performers from each participating university was a two-month, paid production internship (read our case study on pages 14-15).
Additionally, the UKFT Young
Textile Technician Fund received another grant of £10,000. The fund helps both businesses and their employees (aged 35 or under) access training critical to business operations and career development (read a case study on pages 15-16).
Our partnership with creative incubator Cockpit Arts began in 2011 and continues to flourish. The Company has invested nearly £265,000 to date, including a further commitment of £66,000 (to be distributed over three
years) towards weaving bursaries. With the addition of Lisa Mota, Jaeyong Kim, Michaela Johnston, Yumo Yuan and Deb King in 2023, we have now sponsored nearly 40 weavers at Cockpit Arts.
Finally, we made a new commitment of £60,000 (over three years) to support the Dovecot Weaving Apprentice Scheme. Dovecot is one of the last remaining tapestry weaving studios in the UK, and is recognised internationally as a centre of excellence and innovation. Sophia McCaffrey was appointed in
This page: Cockpit Arts Weaver Deb King with her work. Facing page: Sophia McCaffrey, the Dovecot Weaving Apprentice, works on a loom. Photography by Phil Wilkinson.
TEXTILES
December, leaving her role as an Audience and Media Assistant at the V&A Dundee. She has begun her three-year training programme with instruction on the basics of tapestry weaving – such as warping on a high loom and tufting.
HERITAGE & CONSERVATION
The Company has been one of the foremost supporters of textile conservation in the UK for many years. Since the 1980s, we have made capital grants, funded research, and provided bursaries for students at the Centre for Textile Conservation, supporting the Centre to the tune of £1.75 million when it was at the University of Southampton, and now in Glasgow. The Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria and Albert
Museum (V&A) was made possible by our £1 million grant, establishing a centre that offered students, designers, and researchers greater access to the museum's collection. In 2024, the Centre will move to the V&A East Storehouse site, in Stratford, and become part of the V&A East Museum cultural campus.
In 2014, the British Museum opened its World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre, supported by our £0.75 million grant towards the creation of The Clothworkers’ Organics Conservation Studio, housed within the Centre.
More recently, we supported a new costume research centre at the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery as well as the relocation of the clothing, textiles and fashion accessories of the Manchester Art Gallery to a new Fashion
and Textiles Gallery in the city centre. The latter has also become a fashion research site for the London College of Fashion, with an AHRCfunded project focused on couture fashion and exploring new ways of displaying related artefacts and engaging audiences.
In 2020, The Company awarded £265,000 to the University of Oxford Textile Study Centre, which will form part of the university's new Collections Teaching and Research Centre (CTRC). Our grant supported two roles over three years during an ambitious £10 million capital project. The state-of-the-art facility will enable two of Oxford's museums – the Ashmolean Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum – to better store, conserve, display and educate around their world-renowned textile collections. The pandemic delayed progress on the CTRC facility, which is currently under construction and on track to open its doors in 2025.
In 2023, Historic Royal Palaces, received its third year of funding for its textile conservation internship programme. Rachele Di Gioia began her internship at Hampton Court Palace in November, and has been primarily focused on working with
the Tapestry and Furnishings team. We also continued funding the twoyear MPhil course via the Textile Conservation Foundation (and its centre at University of Glasgow). We have supported the programme for nearly 40 years, and Jessica Hay received the most recent Clothworkers' bursary.
TEXTILE DESIGN & CRAFT
The Clothworkers’ Company made a new commitment of £20,000 to Central Saint Martins, funding the Clothworkers' Insights Bursary for a student on the BA Textile Design course. Insights is the largest, specialist widening-participation programme in the UK, designed to systematically dismantle barriers to access, and students are drawn from some of the most disadvantaged areas across Greater London.
We continued to support New Designers and the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition. For the 2023 New Designers competition, Clothworkers Elizabeth Ashdown and Emily May (herself a past New Designers award recipient) served as judges and bestowed our Printed Textile Design Associate Prize upon Hayden Mackenzie.
Facing page: Historic Royal Palaces intern Rachele Di Gioia. Centre: Our New Designers prize winner, Hayden Mackenzie, with his collection.
LEATHER BAGS & LUXURY BRANDS: SPOTLIGHT ON UKFT MADE IT INTERNSHIPS
Last year, second-year students Samuele Ricchiuti and Sairra Holder secured places on the UKFT MADE IT programme, and were each awarded paid two-month internships as a result of their successful final projects from the MADE IT masterclass.
The MADE IT project was piloted in 2017 with funding from Marks and Spencer; support from The Clothworkers' Company and CapitB Trust has enabled it to continue. Partnering with five UK universities, the programme supports students in gaining a
broad understanding of global production and sourcing, with a focus on UK sourcing in fashion and textiles.
Samuele, who is on the BA Fashion Design course at the University of Westminster, undertook an internship with London-based leather specialist Nosakhari. He was supervised by the Founder and Creative Director, Nosakhare ('Nosa') Osadolor. Samuele said, 'Nosa pushed [me] outside of my comfort zone ... The first few weeks, he sat me down to talk about his brand ethos and values.
He put me straight to work, starting with a tech sheet of professional standards for the Able Bag. I learned the difference and difficulty found in accessory design, as everything must be exact and in scale to the millilitre. This was very new to me as in garment design, tech drawings are made to proportion and not to scale. This challenge helped me improve my skills as an illustrator. Nosa gave me great feedback and sharpened my eye for detail.'
Samuele also credits Nosa with teaching him the difference
“The UK has some of the best design graduates in the world and some of the most talented manufacturers – MADE IT brings them together. The project will help to ensure the success of the next generation in understanding the business of fashion, which is a fundamental part of UKFT's purpose.”
Nigel Lugg, Chairman at UKFT.
Images from UKFT.org. On the left, Samuele (black t-shirt) at Nosakhari. On the right, Sairra at LLUK.
between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, and teaching him important lessons about leadership, communication and respect. Samuele finished his internship by designing a new key ring. With guidance from the expert team and several sampling trials, it was implemented in one of Nosakhari's collections.
Sairra Holder, who is on the BA Fashion and Textiles course at Buckinghamshire New University, was placed with LLUK, which offers textile services to luxury brands. Sairra said the biggest lession she learned during her
time there was 'discovering there is often more than one way to do things, and you don't have to follow a rule book.' Critically, she had the opportunity to explore different types of backings and fabrics for embroidery, gain experience on embroidery software (Wilcom), take part in a pop-up embroidery event, and learn about patterncutting and sewing on a site visit to another facility.
Lucy Minty, the Embroidery Production Manager at LLUK, said it was great to have Sairra. 'She was not afraid to get stuck in and help with bulk production. This gave her
an all-around understanding of the areas within textiles manufacturing, from sampling/design stages to bulk production and how this process works. I think this has enabled her to have a better idea of the textiles manufacturing industry as a whole, seeing a product from start to finish. It feels great to educate the younger generation on the actualities of UK textiles manufacturing and all involved into making a product, it’s not all design!'
Read more on MADE IT from the UKFT website at: www.UKFT.org.
UKFT YOUNG TEXTILE TECHNICIAN FUND:
JOHN SMEDLEY LTD & BILL BABER KNITWEAR
Georgia Clarke, aged 25, is a trainee programmer. Jessica Turnbull, aged 23, has been working as a production assistant since she graduated. They both received support from UKFT’s Young Textile Technician Fund to undertake new training to progress their own careers and support business needs where they work.
Georgia is a graduate of the Fashion Design course at University of Westminster and previously participated in the UKFT MADE IT programme, earning an internship at London Contour Experts. As a trainee programmer at John Smedley Ltd, she has continued developing her skills with training on the company's new Shima Seiki Mini Machine.
John Smedley is the oldest, continuously operating knitwear manufacturer in the world, producing fine gauge knitwear from its factory in Derbyshire since 1784. Training new technicians on programming for the mini machines will help John Smedley develop its accessory product group further while enabling technicians to handle maintenance of the machines when the need arises.
Georgia said, 'This training allowed me to gain a better understanding
of running the machines, to be able to assist in adjusting our current products where needed, and to help develop additional prototypes for future seasons ... I've enjoyed my week training with Shima Seiki and now feel confident using the machines and developing new styles for the John Smedley collection.'
Jessica (pictured to the right) specialised in knit during her Textile Design course at The Glasgow School of Art before she starting working at Bill Baber Knitwear, a family-run business based in Edinburgh. She spent six months completing her Stoll M1 Plus software training.
The course helped Jessica gain a complete understanding of how to operate the knitting machines, work with the software interface, and learn how to programme fully-fashioned garments. She is now confident in programming her own knitwear software and operating the Stoll machinery.
Reflecting on her experience, she said, 'I completed the training [online], so it meant that I could use the machinery here at Bill Baber to test out my programming and then make improvements to my knit designs. This made it easier to understand the lessons, as I
could visualise both the technical programme view with the physical knitted sample ... I think this will be hugely valuable in my development at Bill Baber Knitwear. I am really happy to have completed the Stoll training courses, and I am looking forward to this helping me achieve more challenging knitted results in this company and my future career.'
Jack, from Baber Knitwear, said, 'Being able to send members of our team for training at Stoll Germany is a huge commitment of time and resources; even the online course is a significant investment – but hugely worthwhile in establishing the core programming skills needed for employees to take the next steps in their development. The assistance from UKFT makes it feasible for us to build on our own internal training programme.'
The Young Textile Technician Fund covers 50% of the costs of in-depth training for textile technicians under the age of 35. It is co-funded by The Clothworkers', Drapers' and Weavers' Companies.
Read more on the YTTF from the UKFT website at: www.UKFT.org.
Image of Jessica, at Baber Knitwear, courtesy of UKFT.org.
CHARITABLE MISSION
Today, our mission is to empower individuals and communities through action, partnership and financial support. While championing textiles is a core part of that mission, we are also focused on fostering community and making a difference through broader charitable giving.
THE CLOTHWORKERS' FOUNDATION
The Clothworkers’ Foundation is usually the conduit of our philanthropic funding, and serves as the primary vehicle through which we are able to drive positive impact for people and communities across the UK. In 2023, our donation to The Clothworkers' Foundation included an extraordinary cash gift of £16.8 million.
We award grants and make donations to a variety of initiatives each year. These include contributions to a number of charitable causes that support our communities in the Square Mile and throughout the UK, donations or investments that protect and promote endangered craft skills, funding for our military affiliates, and other programmes that are aligned with our core values.
Some of our ‘Charitable Mission’ grant recipients are highlighted in the following pages.
THE CREATIVE DIMENSION TRUST (TCDT)
We initially supported The Creative Dimension Trust (TCDT) with a grant of £60k (over three years, 201921), and committed another £50k to support its work from 2022 to 2024.
The arts-based charity continues to grow and thrive, supporting young people, primarily from disadvantaged backgrounds, to discover and develop their interest and talent for craft skills. Demand for places at TCDT workshops continues to grow; the organisation received more than 750 applications in 2023, representing a 25% increase. The charity delivered a record 42 workshops to 349 students from more than 650 schools, colleges and universities across the UK (including home-schooled students).
A highlight for many TCDT students is the now annual opportunity to take over a window display at the Fortnum & Mason flagship store in Piccadilly. In 2023, Fortnum & Mason invited TCDT students to work on more projects inside the store and on the shop floor. Perhaps the most exciting was the collaboration with TCDT to create a new, permanent mural on the second floor, Parfum Glorieux
The theme given to TCDT designer and trustee Simon Costin was 'Joy',
and the Fortnum & Mason archivist provided research from the company to help guide the students' design, including illustrations of perfume bottles. Tutor Sarah Hocombe worked closely with three students to create the mural, drawing inspiration from the works of Eric Ravilious (a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver).
ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL: CHORISTER BURSARY
St Paul’s Cathedral offers talented young people the unprecedented opportunity to become a chorister at the Cathedral School and to train with one of the most prestigious choirs in the world. The Cathedral is committed to ensuring that the incredible opportunity of becoming a chorister is open to young people from a wide variety of backgrounds and not dependent on their family’s ability to be able to afford to pay the fees. However, it costs more than £30,000 a year to train a chorister. In 2023, The Company continued to provide a bursary of £10,000 (via the St Paul's Cathedral Chorister Trust) to cover the cost of boarding for a young person who would otherwise not be able to access this opportunity. The current bursary holder is Ismael Dosoo. Ismael performed at the Masters' and Clerks' Dinner in March 2023 – it was among the final events held at the sixth Clothworkers' Hall.
CHARITABLE MISSION
CITY & GUILDS FOUNDATION: INTERTRAIN
Reoffending costs approximately £18.1 billion every year in England, and evidence shows that upskilling prisoners to gain sustainable employment upon release, together with stable accommodation and support, is the most effective way to counter reoffending. However, without assistance, only 26.5% of ex-offenders find employment upon release.
To help prisoners reach their potential, City & Guilds Foundation works in prisons to provide everything from quality
training and recognition services, to collaborating with employers seeking to access new talent, to funding innovative new technology that helps prisoners secure skills for future employment.
In 2021, The Clothworkers' Company partnered with The Merchant Taylor's Company to fund a City & Guilds' pilot programme to deliver skills training by Intertrain to learners from HMP & YOI Hatfield who were released on temporary license (ROTL). The pilot enabled learners to gain a Level 2 in Rail Track Maintenance and new entrant mandatory licenses to practice. It was a huge success, with 100% of
participants reporting that they were still in employment two years later, with 67% of them reporting that they were still employed in the rail industry.
The Clothworkers' Company has continued to sponsor the project, encouraged by Livery Member Geoffrey Gestetner, who is a Council Member at the City & Guilds Institute. The organisation has expanded the prisoner education programme delivered by Intertrain with a second rail track facility inside HMP Highpoint and created a Centre of Excellence. It has continued to prove its impact, with 81% of learners maintaining their
employment status. One reason for its success is the close collaboration with employers such as Vital, CRS, Ganymede, Network Rail and more, who provide guaranteed employment opportunities, upon release, to those who complete the programme.
NO GOING BACK
No Going Back (NGB), delivered by the charity Bounce Back, began as a pan-livery initiative – Court Assistant Andy Wates has been a long-standing member of the steering committee. NGB was designed to support rehabilitation, reduce re-offending and transform
lives. It is also supported by the City & Guilds Foundation. At the end of the first three years of the programme, No Going Back exceeded its original goals. With the support of more than 40 livery companies and 150 volunteers, the programme helped 2,000 participants to access bespoke training, upskilling, employability and work readiness coaching. As a result, 240 individuals found employment following their release from prison. They have been supported to secure jobs in a variety of industries such as cleaning, maintenance, the built environment, HGV/driving, hospitality, sales, engineering, general admin and more.
With continued support from The Clothworkers' Company and others, No Going Back has now evolved into a separate charity and has developed a new social enterprise, NGB Clean. NGB Clean is a commercial, construction and industrial cleaning service that employs ex-offenders and addresses a skills shortage in one of the UK's largest industries.
To learn more about getting involved as a donor, volunteer, corporate sponsor or employment partner, visit the website: NoGoingBack.uk.
Facing page: The HMP Highpoint rail track training facility. This page: NGB Clean commercial van.
This page: Representatives from Women in Prison accept the award for Board Equity, Diversity and Inclusion from judge Bola Ajose.
Next page: Additional photos from the Charity Governance Awards, including the panel discussion.
TRUSTEESHIP
For more than two decades, we have been establishing trusteeship as a core purpose of our membership, and positioning The Clothworkers’ Company as a grantmaker and a champion for improvement in charity governance across the UK.
TRUSTEESHIP AND MEMBERS
Service is one of our primary objects as a company, both for members and for the organisation. Clothworkers come together in friendship, giving their time and expertise to serve others and to make a positive and sustained impact within our livery company, the City of London and beyond. They fill positions on our Court of Assistants (our governing body) and take on community roles – more than 37% have reported serving as trustees or school governors, and as volunteers. It is our aim to inspire and to nurture that spirit of service at all levels of our organisation. While the majority of Clothworkers may not be connected to the textiles industry by profession, we know they all have experience, expertise and skills that can be directed towards making a difference within The Company and in their own communities.
Our flourishing collaboration with our grantee and partner Reach Volunteering provides a platform
that enables us to promote trustee vacancies to Clothworkers, which we publish directly to the Members’ Area and highlight in our monthly e-newsletter, along with occasional trustee vacancies shared by grant recipients of The Clothworkers' Foundation. The Trustee Leadership Programme, which we co-fund with Close Brothers Asset Management, is offered free of charge to members interested in trusteeship who need a foundation before they join a board. For those already experienced as trustees, a number of seminars are offered by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), which members are encouraged to attend whenever possible.
We also encourage Clothworkers to consider other areas of service. Members interested in volunteering as a school governor are directed to opportunities through the Livery Schools Link. Clothworkers can use their experience and time to help mentor and advocate for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through the Catch22 Inspiring Connections programme, which The Company has sponsored since its pilot programme and continued to fund in 2023. Finally, other opportunities for one-time volunteering or fundraising are also promoted to members as and when they arise.
TRUSTEESHIP
ANNUAL CHARITY GOVERNANCE AWARDS
We are proud to sponsor and host the annual Charity Governance Awards, celebrating best practice among boards and rewarding trustee leadership throughout the UK. The awards are made possible through the partnerships we have forged with NPC, Prospectus and Reach Volunteering. We are grateful to our Clothworker members for continuing to participate in the Charity Governance Awards, volunteering for the first-round evaluation of submitted entries.
In June 2023, the eighth annual Charity Governance Awards ceremony was held at Clothworkers' Hall. The
15 charities shortlisted for the awards covered a diverse range of activities, including education, services for young people in care or care leavers, mental health research, support for women in prison or women ex-offenders, a school uniform bank, animal welfare, overseas community building, and more. The six organisations that took home trophies and cash prizes included:
• Board Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Merton Centre for Independent Living & Women in Prison (joint winners)
• Transforming With Digital: Carers in Bedfordshire
• Improving Impact in Small Charities: Edinburgh School Uniform Bank (0-3 paid staff)
and Depden Care Farm (4-30 paid staff)
• From Systemic Challenge to Meaningful Change: MQ Mental Health Research
In addition to the £5k prize (as an unrestricted grant) bestowed upon winners, runners-up received a £1k prize. The Company also continued to offer all shortlisted charities a one-year membership with the Association of Chairs (for chairs and vice chairs), and a training opportunity with Cause4 for a new or inexperienced trustee.
The ceremony included an inspiring keynote address by Amir Rizwan (Big Society Capital, Cripplegate Foundation, and The
Clothworkers' Foundation) and a panel discussion facilitated by Saeed Atcha MBE DL (Founding CEO of YouthLeads and Clothworker) with representatives from past winners and runners up including Missing People (Jane Harwood), I Choose Freedom (Sally Stimpson), and Teach Sri Lanka (Dinesh Rajendran).
We know from our external five-year review of the awards, in 2020, that they remain a unique opportunity to celebrate the importance of good charity governance, and they are perceived as a valuable way to recognise the work of charity trustees and draw wider attention to important issues faced by charity boards.
GRANTS FOR GOVERNANCE
Beyond promoting and amplifying stories of exemplary trusteeship, The Company has established itself as a significant grant maker to support better charity governance. Working with our partners, we sponsor organisations and initiatives aimed at enhancing the capability of those already serving, increasing participation of would-be trustees, and improving diversity and inclusivity on boards.
A charity’s service users are dependent on its trustees for the leadership required to keep the organisation capable, nimble and sustainable. This means having the right breadth of talent, lived experience and range of skills at
the table. Being a trustee is hard work and challenging, but 93% of trustees say it is immensely fulfilling. And yet, charity boards still struggle to develop policies or create environments where equity, diversity and inclusion thrive, and to recruit the expertise, experience and talent they need to govern effectively.
Recognising these challenges, we continue to invest in and support the Cause4 Trustee Leadership Programme. Cause4 continues to deliver an in-person, five-week programme that ends in a charitytrustee matching event each year. Since the pandemic, Cause4 has also developed an alternative virtual, two-day leadership course. In addition, we continue to fund free, online trustee seminars through our partners at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), which include relevant topics and expert panels.
Finally, The Company has maintained its support of the Reach Volunteering TrusteeWorks recruitment service. Despite predictions that the cost of living crisis would reduce volunteering, Reach helped fill 1,539 trustee vacancies and placed another 2,976 volunteers in 2023. These volunteers made valuable contributions in skills, experience and diverse perspectives to more than 1,300 organisations in the UK.
This page: Stained glass window salvaged from Mary Datchelor Girl's School Trust in 2012, now permanently installed at Blackheath High school. Facing page: Packing and storing of collections at the sixth Clothworkers' Hall.
ARCHIVES & COLLECTIONS
We continue to preserve, make accessible and develop our unique collections of archives and works of art, whilst seeking to support talent and nurture skills across selected endangered crafts.
LEAVING CLOTHWORKERS' HALL & COLLECTIONS CARE
The Archive team lead a committee-wide process to review and agree what furnishings and fixtures should be carefully removed from Clothworkers’ Hall for storage, pending future decisions on the decoration and finishing of our seventh home. In March, we temporarily closed our enquiries and research appointments service, and spent
the next 16 weeks in the vaults carefully supervising the wrapping, packing, and boxing of every item in our archive and silver collections by a heritage removals firm. At the same time, we were painstakingly noting reference numbers and barcodes to enable us to account for the location of every item, large and small, in offsite storage. The packing of our collections of clocks, tapestries and paintings was also carefully overseen by the archive team – it took eight people to roll the Cyrus tapestries, which had previously hung on the grand staircase. A veritable army of specialist conservators was sourced and brought in to remove the stained glass, limewood carvings, coats of arms and other decorative
features, saving them for posterity.
Lorry loads had to be meticulously planned to split risk and ensure adequate insurance cover. Some 30 vehicles left Dunster Court between May and July, destined for our offsite storage facilities, utilised by many major archive and museum collections. The archivist’s ‘find of the week’ updates provided moments of lighthearted relief to staff at the end of each gruelling week in the basement.
Alongside this, the contents of the Library collection were rationalised and transferred to our new offices at Eastcheap, with key reference files. Together with the provision of a small secure room, this ensured we
ARCHIVES & COLLECTIONS
were able to reopen to researchers in the autumn, recalling archival material from storage as required for academic use. A great deal of post-move documentation work was required to bring all record keeping up to date for the annual insurance valuation and audit.
The Mary Datchelor Girls’ School archive was, after very careful consideration, and in view of its light use and uncatalogued status, donated to Southwark Archives, where it may be more easily accessed by researchers, and brought together with other Mary Datchelor material already held there. A small grant was made to Southwark Archives for preservation materials. We have,
however, retained many artefacts and our own records regarding our historic connection with the school, so that it continues to remain an important part of our history.
Despite this upheaval, the team continued its multifarious activities, maintaining our commissioning and craft support activities throughout the year.
COMMISSIONING
During the year, two completed bookbinding commissions arrived, both of important catalogues of exhibitions on the history of London. Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker: Surviving the Great Fire of London was written by Hazel
Forsyth to accompany the Museum of London show marking the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire in 2016. The black goatskin binding by Dominic Riley, Fellow of Designer Bookbinders, was cleverly inspired by the modern London skyline (i.e. the buildings that have been erected in the 350 years since) and the Great Fire itself. A single gold tooled (sky)line moves west to east across both covers of the binding encompassing the Post Office Tower, Millennium Wheel, Big Ben, Cleopatra’s Needle, Tower Bridge, the Walkie Talkie, the Monument, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin, the Shard and Canary Wharf. Underneath is the City as it burned in 1666, with applied lacunose panels (of pared and sanded back red, orange, yellow
This page: Dominic Riley's binding (left) and Tom McEwan's binding (right). Facing page: Samuel Pepys is depicted on McEwan's binding.
and purple goatskin) to represent the shapes of the buildings that perished. Gold leaf was added to represent all the gold that was lost during the fire – or in the case of the Cheapside Hoard, buried and discovered centuries later.
Riley describes the binding as ‘A tribute to London – a great city, which people from all over the world call home. Its tenacity and endurance. The binding is very simple, quite literal, with plenty of sparkling gold for [his late mentors and master craftsmen] Bernard [Middleton], artistic leather decoration for Paul [Delrue], and a new vision for an old story, from me.’
Tom McEwan created a
particularly dramatic binding of Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution, by Margarette Lincoln, published alongside the major exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in 2015, to which we lent our three pieces of Pepys plate, and Pepys’ portrait by John Riley.
Covered in hand-dyed leather, West Kilbride-based McEwan used an innovative paste-resist technique to imprint additional dyed colours on natural leather. The resulting binding, in McEwan’s characteristic expressive style, also features fore-edges covered in gold leaf fragments and a transfer-printed portrait of the great bibliophile Pepys, whom, McEwan discovered, was fond of watching his own books being bound.
SUPPORTING CRAFT SKILLS
Alongside our commissioning activity, we continue to nurture talent and support skills training in our selected crafts – bookbinding and silver. Since 2007, we have supported Designer Bookbinders, one of the foremost societies devoted to the craft of contemporary bookbinding, principally through the provision of bursaries and competition prizes.
In 2023, we also made a grant of £16,950 to continue the Designer Bookbinders' Licentiate Scheme, developed to mentor and upskill a new body of Licentiates within the society, following a successful pilot in 2022. Each Licentiate receives an annual bursary for training opportunities tailored to individual
ARCHIVES & COLLECTIONS
Left: Slipcases made by Licentiates on one of the training courses funded by The Clothworkers' Company.
Right: Licentiate Ted Bennett at a leather covering class by Stuart Brockman.
“The new techniques and skills that the scholars will learn will give them a wonderful technical foundation that will put them in good stead to go on and achieve great things as well as acting as ambassadors for the craft, and hopefully they will also go on to teach the next generation of silversmiths.”
Rod Kelly, Founder of the South House Silver Workshop Trust
This page: Sheng Zhang's award-winning silver jug and beaker. Photography by Richard Valencia. Facing page: Miranda Kemp's award-winner artist's book, Summer Shadows.
ARCHIVES & COLLECTIONS
development needs. Licentiates can use their bursaries to attend or arrange workshops, bespoke one-to-one training, and society meetings or mentoring sessions.
The scheme is intended to address skills gaps within the craft and expedite the path to fellowship of these individuals, who will very likely become DB educators and trainers in the future. We were delighted to see several Licentiates win prizes at DB’s now biennial competition in November – winners included Ted Bennett, a former QBAS apprentice.
Licentiate Miranda Kemp took home first prize in the ‘Open Choice’ category, which The Clothworkers’ Company sponsored, for her beautiful artist’s book, Summer Shadows
In silver, we continue to support Contemporary British Silversmiths’ Skills Training Programme, designed to ‘train future trainers’. We also fund bursaries to enable students to purchase tools and precious metals at Bishopsland Educational Trust. During the decant from Clothworkers’ Hall, we were able to donate a large quantity of silver cutlery for recycling purposes and made a grant of £2,000 to enable Bishopsland to purchase essential equipment to pursue its commitment to circularity and ethical making. Additionally, we donated workshop furniture to help Bishopsland kit out its new home at The National Trust’s Buscot and Coleshill Estate Heritage and Rural Skills Centre.
In the autumn, we provided funding
of £12,000 to enable Rod Kelly’s South House Silver Workshop Trust graduate silversmith scholarship programme to run for a third successive year. Sheng Zhang, Alice Fry and Karen Westland have recently completed their residencies with Rod in Shetland and with Brett Payne in Sheffield. Both Alice and Karen are Bishopsland alumnae, and Alice and Sheng were multiple award winners at the recent Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council Awards, fondly dubbed the ‘Oscars of jewellery and silversmithing’ (2024).
In 2023, we formed a partnership with those same Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council Awards to sponsor a new prize category in hand silversmithing – the first prize was awarded in March 2024 and more information is available in the Members' Supplement
MILITARY AFFILIATES
We are proud to support our military affiliates, and continued to award grants to HMS Dauntless, the Scots Guards, No. 47 Squadron RAF, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps, and the Army Cadet Force (41 Cadet Detachment Dagenham) in 2023. Our financial support primarily assisted with a range of welfare activities for the service men and women, and their families, as well as grants for special projects.
HMS Dauntless and her crew prepared for deployment in the Caribbean. Our grant of £20,000 supported a Family Day, including lunch for the crew and their families on the ship before the six-month mission, as well as a new awards programme to recognise exceptional crew members and their service to the ship. Additional funds were spent to support welfare initiatives, such as helping a soldier whose family lives outside the UK attend the funeral of his mother.
We hosted the Scots Guards at Drapers' Hall in June 2023 for the Community Awards ceremony and luncheon, which we sponsored again. We also awarded a grant to support the Soldiers and Family Welfare
Programme. The battalion continued with its innovative monthly welfare evenings for single soldiers, giving them a space to socialise outside of duties, as well as weekly coffee mornings for soldiers' spouses. Funds were also directed towards a Christmas shopping group trip to York and a family Christmas fair where every child with a parent serving in the battalion received a present.
The Company's grant to the Operational Welfare Fund for No. 47 Squadron RAF was used to fund the Hercules Dinner at the RAF Museum, which Past
Master Alex Nelson attended. Our funding allowed airmen to attend, with partners and family members, at a greatly reduced cost. The Squadron used the occasion to publicly thank the current service members and their families before the squadron was retired.
The first payment of our grant to the FANY was made in June 2023. While there were no new major deployments for the volunteer corp in 2023, it did complete a move of the FANY HQ from Rochester Row, where it had been stationed for 13 years, to Wellington Barracks.
Above: Past Master Alex Nelson congratulates LSgt Michael O'Neill (Scots Guards).
Our Annual Review and Members' Supplement are printed on paper certified in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by Woodrow Press Ltd, which aims to reduce at source the effect its operations have on the environment and is committed to continual improvement, prevention of pollution, and compliance with legislation or industry standards.