We’re still recovering from our amazing but very-busy Open Day last Saturday, part of our Heritage Open Day (HOD) Week offer. We’ll be bringing you a full round-up of that day, and all our other wonderful HOD events in a few weeks – but today we can share a small snapshot of what we’ve been up-to, with details of a lovely display curated by staff in our Business and Intellectual Property department (BIPC) for HOD and using some treasures from our Central Library collections.

The display is available to view on the 2nd floor of the Central Library for a few more weeks.

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C & M Sumrie Ltd was a pioneering men’s fashion textile company founded by Harris Sumrie in 1891 in Leeds.

Harris Sumrie (1866-1951), a Polish, Jewish immigrant, was a skilled tailor who realized the potential of providing high quality ready-to-wear clothing and bespoke tailoring for men.

He formulated a scientific sizing plan by which each garment was available in over hundred different fittings.

The artist F. Whitby Cox received his first commission in the 1920s from the company to do men’s fashion sketches.

You can read more about the Sumrie company elsewhere on the Secret Library.

The following books and other collections items can be seen in the display:

• Jaybeez (Staff Magazine for John Barran & Sons) 1929
• Careers for Yorkshire Girls: The Wholesale Clothing Industry, 1950-1959
• Well Suited: A History of the Leeds Clothing Industry, 1850 – 1990
• John Barran’s of Leeds, 1851-1951
• The Industrial Architecture of Yorkshire
• The House that Jack Built: The Story of Marshall & Co

All of those titles can be accessed through our Local and Family History department.

The following books and other collections items are also available on the general subject of textiles and clothing in Leeds’ history:

• Dignified Dress. Montague Burton Ltd (1935)
• A Day at a Leeds Flax Mill. Penny Magazine (December 1843)
• Marshalls of Leeds, Flax-Spinners. WG Rimmer (1960)
• A History of the Leeds Clothing Industry. Joan Thomas (1955)
• Who was the architect of Temple Mill? Neil Cooke (1994)
• Ideals in Industry: The story of Montague Burton (1951)
• The Leeds Woollen Industry, 1780-1820. W.B. Crump (1931)
• ‘Industrial Leeds,’ part of the Discovering Leeds website run by Leeds Libraries

Again, all of the titles listed above can be accessed through our Local and Family History department.