Abstract

The circumstances leading to the establishment of the Department of Leather Industries, within the Yorkshire College at Leeds, are described and related to the position of the leather trade in the Leeds area at that time. The key step was the appointment, in 1891, of Henry Richardson Procter (Fig. 1) to set up the department, supported by the gift of £5000 by the Worshipful Company of Skinners to pay for a departmental building. The changes resulting from the transformation of the Yorkshire College into the University of Leeds, in 1904, together with the outstanding researches of Professor Procter, gained the department worldwide recognition. The long and finally unsuccessful struggle to secure sufficient leather students resulted in the introduction of a second discipline, food science, in 1962. The development of this subject and the final phase of leather studies are described for the period until 1977, at which time all leather courses were terminated.