The Home Arts and Industries Association was part of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain. It was founded in 1884 by Eglantyne Louisa Jebb, mother of

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

founders, Dorothy and

Eglantyne Jebb Eglantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) was a British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organisation at the end of the First World War to relieve the effects of famine in Austria-Hungary and Germany. She drafted th ...

and Louisa Wilkins who helped start the

Women's Land Army The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the W ...

. The initial name, changed in 1885, was the "Cottage Arts Association". Jebb was inspired by an initiative of

Charles Godfrey Leland Charles Godfrey Leland (August 15, 1824 – March 20, 1903) was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe. Leland worked in journalism, travelled extensivel ...

in Philadelphia. Another leading member was the designer Mary Fraser Tytler. The organisation sought to revive traditional rural crafts which were threatened by the mechanisation of production and by increasing urbanization. In conformity with the thinking of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

and with Arts and Crafts philosophy, supporters believed that flourishing traditional crafts helped sustain rural communities and provided workers with far more personal satisfaction than was possible for factory workers. The Association funded schools and organised marketing opportunities for craftspeople. By 1889 it had 450 classes, 1,000 teachers and 5,000 students. The first of the Associations’ annual exhibitions took place in July 1885 and by 1888 were large enough to take place in the Royal Albert Hall, an annual occurrence until 1913. In 1890 the Association moved their offices to the Hall as tenants of the building and continued their work of funding schools and organising marketing opportunities for craftspeople. In 1904 the Art Workers Quarterly said the association, '…is a society for teaching the working classes handicrafts such as wood carving, inlaying, metal repousse, basket weaving, leather work, book binding, and for encouraging these and others such as lace, embroidery spinning, weaving, pottery etc., by means of an annual exhibition'.The Art Workers Quarterly, Vol.3, p135-138, 1904

References

Interior design Arts organizations established in the 19th century Arts organizations established in 1884 Arts and Crafts movement {{Art-org-stub