Harry Peach
This exhibition explores the basketry collected by Harry Peach, the founder of Leicester’s Dryad Handicrafts Company.
The basketry displayed here is part of his larger collection, which included textiles, woodwork, leatherwork, and beadwork. Peach gathered these between 1918 and 1936. They came from former British colonies in Africa, South Asia, and in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Others came from Central Europe, and the Americas.
Harry Peach was a Leicester businessman who was interested in design and craft. In 1907 he opened the Dryad Furniture Showroom at 42, St. Nicholas Street, to sell cane and wicker furniture. During the First World War he donated materials to the 5th Northern General Hospital, so that wounded soldiers could make baskets as occupational therapy. This was so successful that Peach opened a handicrafts section at his Dryad Showroom to sell cane and other craft materials to schools.
Portrait of Harry Peach, circa 1920.
This section of his Showroom was also used to display temporary exhibitions of items from his growing personal collection. In the 1920s it was thought that mechanisation might lead to the end of the arts and crafts. Peach hoped that his displays of handmade items from across the World would inspire local artists and makers to both continue these traditions, and learn new techniques and designs.
Whilst some items were bought by Peach on his travels, others were given to him by members of his personal network around the world. These included Christian missionaries, colonial administrators, educators, and private dealers, all interested in the new science of anthropology. The Dryad Handicrafts collection is important in positioning Britain within its global history.
The Dryad Showroom in 1954, with its Handicrafts section on the left, and the Furniture section to the right.
“At the Dryad headquarters is maintained a museum collection of examples of native work from all over the world, including some of the most remote and little-known peoples, and this collection is often consulted and examined by teachers and students of these crafts, who find in it a fruitful source of ideas and inspiration”.
Leicester Daily Mercury, 21 January 1928.