The Warner Textile Archive: Forgotten Pieces of Britain’s Industrial and Creative Past

Listen to the latest episode of the Louder Than Words Podcast to discover the story of the Warner Textile Archive and how Essex historians are helping unlock the potential of the archive for designers and bringing it to life for the public.

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Professor Jules Pretty from the University of Essex and journalist Martha Dixon speak to historians and archivists plus top designers who love using Warner textiles.

Warner and Sons once provided the luxury fabrics which decorated palaces and featured at royal weddings.

The Warner Textile Archive is now the largest publicly owned collection from a luxury textile manufacturer in the UK. The Archive is housed in the original Warner & Sons mill in Braintree that was refurbished in 2004 to hold the significant collection.

The collection comprises over 100,000 items, including designs on paper, hand woven textiles, printed textiles, business records, photographs and manufacturing equipment. At its height, Warner & Sons were producing fabric for royal weddings and funerals, and decorating palaces. The family business pioneered several textile manufacturing techniques that have never again been replicated.

Contributors: 

• Dr Alix Green, from the Department of History at Essex, is overseeing a project to digitise the Warner Textile Archive.
• PhD student Samantha Woodward has helped the Warner Textile Archive to develop a framework for further research into core parts of the collection and looked at ways to engage with users in the future.
• Robert Rose is Museum Manager of the Warner Textile Archive.
• Sophie Jemma is Archivist at the Warner Textile Archive.
• Cassie Nicholas is an Interior Designer and Winner of the BBC Interior Design Masters programme who has used Warner Textiles.
• Adam Sykes, owner of heritage fabrics specialist Claremont which continues to use Warner Textile designs in its ranges.