Collectors

Collectors

Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, is more generally known as Bess of Hardwick. She is famous for her textiles and needlework, some of which she made herself. Her textiles include embroidered bed hangings, bedcovers, chair upholsteries, pillow covers, table covers and wall hangings.

Sir William Burrell Jr. (1861-1958) was a Scottish shipping magnate and art collector. He donated his art collection, including textiles, to the city of Glasgow in 1944; a large part of the collection was first shown to the public in 1983, in Pollok Country Park, south of Glasgow.

Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910) was an important nineteenth century British artist, critic, and industrial designer, who played an important role in the Arts and Crafts Movement, trying to relate this movement to industrial production, and was closely linked to other important designers of the period, such as Walter Crane and William Morris. He also worked for the Wedgwood company, for Maw & Co, and Pilkington.

Widad Kawar was born in Toelkarem from a Palestinian family and she was raised in Bethlehem. She went to a Quaker school in Ramallah and later studied at the American University of Beirut. She married Kamel Amin Kawar and went to live in Amman, Jordan. The Kawars are a long established family in Jordan, deeply involved in many aspects of the country’s life.

Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth was the daughter of Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth (1844-1939) and Blanche Marion Kay-Shuttleworth (née Parish). The Hon. Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth's father was the 1st Baron Shuttleworth, who held various ministerial appointments, including that of Under-Secretary of State for India.

Philip Lehman (1861-1947) was the son of Emanuel Lehman (1827-1907), the founder of the investment firm of Lehman Brothers, which went defunct in 2008. He started collecting art in 1911, and upon his death bequeathed the major part of his collection to his son, Robert Lehman (1891-1969).

Robert Lehman (1891-1969) was an American entrepreneur and art collector. He was for many years the head of the banking firm of the Lehman Brothers, the collapse of which in 2008 led to the subsequent world-wide financial crisis.

Doris Langley (-Levy) Moore was an important British fashion historian. She founded the Museum of Costume in 1963, which since has been renamed the Fashion Museum, in Bath. She was also an expert on Lord Byron, and in the 1940's wrote the scenario for a ballet, The Quest. 

George Hewitt Myers (1875-1957) was an American forester and philanthropist who was the heir to the Bristol-Myers pharmaceutical fortune. He started to collect carpets and textiles in the 1890’s with a number of Turkish and Caucasian village rugs that were originally bought for his room at Yale University.

Sir Frederick Henry Richmond was chairman of the department stores Debenhams and Harvey Nichol's, and made baronet in 1929. His son John Frederick Richmond (1924-2000) inherited the title, which became in fact extinct upon his death.

Adelheid von Rothschild (1853-1935) was the daughter of Ferdinand von Rotschild, and she married her French cousin, Edmond de Rothschild in 1877. Like her father and her aunt, Alice von Rothschild, she was a great collector of art, and she focussed in particular on costumes and textiles, and accessories, from the eighteenth century.

Alice Charlotte von Rothschild was born in 1847 in Frankfurt as the eighth and youngest child of Anselm and Charlotte von Rothschild. She was the sister of another great, nineteenth century collector, Ferdinand von Rothschild. In 1875, Alice von Rothschild acquired the Eythrope estate, close to the Waddesdon Manor of her brother, Ferdinand. When her brother died in 1898, she inherited Waddesdon.

Ferdinand James Anselm von Rothschild was born in Paris in 1839 as the second son of Baron Anselm von Rothschild (1803–1874) and his English wife, Charlotte von Rothschild (née Rothschild, 1807–1859). In 1874 he bought the Waddesdon estate in Buckinghamshire and commissioned the building of Waddesdon Manor.

Sir Julius Charles Wernher (1850-1912) was a German born entrepreneur who moved to England in 1871 and became very successful in the gold and diamond trade in South Africa  (so-called Randlord). He also became an art collector, and his collection included many textiles.