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Company Description in the ‘List of Winners’ preceeding the section, for checking:
Thomas Ware & Sons Ltd
A traditional tannery with innovative, modern day thinking, producing leather for; equestrian, industrial, leather goods, belting, sports and shoe trades.
We have produced the following editorial to the best of our understanding of your require-
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Thomas Ware & Sons Ltd
THOMAS WARE AND SONS LTD is a traditional vegetable tannery, producing high-quality leathers for customers in the UK and across the world.
Honoured to receive the Queen’s Award, we intend to continue the expansion of our global customer base by raising awareness of our excellent reputation as a British company with traditional craft, skill and heritage, that produces a premium product.
The UK has a strong history of tanning and until the industrial revolution it was practised wherever there was a plentiful supply of animal hides and water. Our tannery has been running at the Bristol Clift House site since 1840, and while the national leather manufacturing industry
has been reduced by pressure from overseas competition, we are one of the few companies who managed to buck this trend.
Thomas Ware and Sons Ltd remains one of three tanneries making vegetable-tanned leather in the UK, down from over 70 in the 1950s. We believe that the best methods of hair removal, liming and tanning for the types of leather we produce are carried out in pits the traditional way, using hides from British beef cattle, while many of our domestic and international competitors elect for quicker cheaper processes.
Historically, it was insisted that all British leather should be tanned for no less than a ‘year and a day’ to ensure world-leading quality. This law was officially abolished during the industrial revolution; however, even today some of our products are tanned for over a year – quite different from most modern methods.
We made our name in the shoe trade, producing high-end soles using British hide leather for the likes of Church’s and Crockett and Jones, as well
as the major wholesalers in the repair trade. More recently, to use the hide to it’s maximum, we have expanded our product range to include more specialist niche leathers.
Developing high quality traditional English bridle and premium oak bark tanned leathers opened up both equestrian and leather goods markets, and we turned our attentions to supplying the major saddle manufacturers in India and exporting to Japan and China for leather bags, wallets and belts.
In 2012 we consolidated on early cricket ball leather sales and further develop a finished cricket ball leather, which established sales to a host
of Indian ball manufacturers, alongside Dukes
and Kookaburra. Our increasingly diverse global customer base continues to be primarily business to business, but now includes leather for anything from snooker cue tips, to flooring, to canine handling leathers, to high-end fashion goods.
Commenting on the award, Barry Knight, sales development manager, said: “We have worked extremely hard at developing the overseas
The team at Thomas Ware & Sons.
Leather being graded for selection and thickness.
Tan pits.
Leather drying over poles.
Raw hides submerged in a lime pit, being prepared for tannage.
THOMAS WARE & SONS LTD
Clift House Tannery, Coronation Road, Bristol,
BS3 1RN • Tel: +44 (0)117 966 4021
Fax: +44 (0)117 9638885 • info@thomasware.co.uk www.thomasware.co.uk Z @TWS_Tannery
z @tws_tannery_uk
Our traditional tanyard.
markets and enjoyed – not just great success – but have developed a number of wonderful, strong relationships along the journey!
“This is only the start of things to come, we have many more leathers to develop and new markets to explore.”
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