The acquisition of items forming the collection began in the late nineteenth century. John and Roberts Beaumont, the first Professors in the Department of Textile Industries of the Yorkshire College (later to become the University of Leeds), began to collect fabric samples and pattern books to use as teaching resources for students of woven textile design. In 1892 the items contained in the collection had increased in number and importance so much that a donation by the Clothworkers’ Company allowed for the provision of a museum. The collection was enhanced by Leeds University professors travelling abroad, particularly Professor Barker who collected in China and South America in the early twentieth century, and bequests such as the Louisa Pesel Collection.
The Collection includes Chinese Qing dynasty embroideries, Kashmiri shawls, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern embroideries, block-printed cottons from Pakistan, Javanese batiks and ikats, Japanese textiles, West African weaves, nineteenth and twentieth century European textile samples, and natural and man-made fibres. Many of the collections can be viewed via the online catalogue.
Website (retrieved 12 March 2022).
JW