The lost art workers of Tyneside: Richard George Hatton and the (Newcastle) Handicrafts Company

This paper explores a unique and previously undocumented early 20th century attempt to forge a link between 'Art School' craft training and the realities of graduates earning a 'living wage' from the sale of their artistic creations. Focusing on a forgotten Arts & Crafts Movement workshop based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, it was described by the late Gillian Naylor (one of the leading scholars of The Arts & Crafts Movement) as: "a valuable contribution to research into the history of design education". The paper explores the wider influence of the well-documented, radical approach to the teaching of practical craft skills instigated by E R Taylor (headmaster of Birmingham School of Art) during the 1880s and 90s. Using archival sources and artifacts, it demonstrates how one of Taylor’s former students, R G Hatton – newly appointed as Art Master at the Durham College of Science – not only adopted Birmingham teaching methods but supported and financed by the progressive, pragmatic patronage of North-East industrialists, had the opportunity to radically extend Taylor’s ideas to a unique conclusion. This was the creation of ‘The Handicrafts Company’, the only Arts & Crafts workshop centred on a UK school of art to actively engage with ‘outside’ commercial trading, giving its members (the students) the opportunity to profit from their labour.