In 2009, John Smedley celebrated 225 years of manufacturing fine gauge, luxury knitwear at Lea Mills in Derbyshire. To mark this milestone, an archive project was launched, led by Archivist, Jane Middleton-Smith, to gather together and catalogue the heritage assets of this remarkable company.
Introducing the John Smedley Archive
Ten years on, and with the help a growing team of volunteers, the archive has listed over 20,000 items. In addition to all the usual paperwork associated with a long running business, the collection has grown to include paintings, photographs, letters, personal artefacts and ephemera connected with the Smedley family and the generations of men and women who worked at the mill. Highlights
include John Smedley 2nd’s apprenticeship papers as a ‘wool comber and hosier’ dated 1825, and the purchase deeds of the factory freehold signed by one the sellers, Florence Nightingale, dated 1893. Most remarkable however are the garments. The collection includes over 10,000 of them, retained as a study collection and resource for the John Smedley design team.
The John Smedley Archive Charitable Trust (JSACT) was formed in 2017 to take the Archive to the next stage and make the collection available to the public. However, from the outset, the Archive has behaved as a ‘museum in waiting’, recruiting volunteers, leading tours around the factory, giving lectures and working with education groups and the media. Research is a priority and aspects of the company history have been written up as academic articles and as annual publications: which include: ‘Dear Mr Smedley’, the story of the men who left Lea Mills to fight in the First World War and ‘The Travel Journals of John and Nancy Marsden-Smedley 1864’. The Archive will also act as a centre for the preservation of the craft skills involved in the manufacture of knitwear and has plans to encourage and inspire textile artists as well as young designers of knitted fashion.