Guild Purchases a Piece of History

The Guild has just acquired a piece of its history - a very rare example of the two-sided aluminium sign given to every member in 1933 to display outside their workshop. The sign says ‘MEMBER OF THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE GUILD OF CRAFTSMEN’ in rather lovely serif lettering.

As you can see from the photograph below, this example originally had a wooden frame and belonged to the furniture maker Peter Evans, a Guild Member from 1951 and a member of the radical Whiteway Colony, near Miserden.

Mary Greensted, former Chairman of the Guild adds 'The Whiteway Colony was set up in 1898 by a small group of men and women from Croydon who were inspired by radical ideas about land ownership. They bought land near Miserden then burnt the title deeds and built their own houses. Many of them turned to crafts to supplement their income from the land.

There was a certain amount of scandal in the Stroud newspaper about free love and naked bathing but basically they were trying to live a simple life. Some of the buildings survive and the village still has an alternative element.'