Branch histories
← The Society · 12 branches
Barrie, Belleville, Hamilton, London, Mississauga, Norland, Peterboro, Petrolia, Tillsonburg, Toronto, Windsor and Woodstock — each branch of the Society, in its own words where the paper survives. Twelve branches in all; three were still the Society’s at its dissolution — Hamilton, Mississauga and Norland. A branch was a local club, and several called themselves guilds — the Hamilton Leathercraft Guild, the Mississauga Society of Creative Leathercraft — but within the Society they were all branches.
History of the Woodstock Branch
The branch in its own words: joined the Society as its sixth branch in 1968 after a meeting in Michigan, first president Beula Reynolds, Weston Trophy winners of 1975.
Read →History of the Hamilton Leathercraft Guild, 1956–2025
Forty-six years of the Society’s largest branch in its own words, then twenty-two more from the Society’s newsletters: a shop on King Street, the Weston Trophy more often than any other branch, thirteen hosted Annuals, a 2023 committee asking whether the Society should close — and a Hamilton member elected President the same year.
Read →The Barrie Branch, 1958–1985
A night-school class in a tannery town that became a branch, won the Weston Trophy six times, and gave up its charter in 1985.
Read →The Toronto Branch, 1952–2011
The Society's first local group, founded at a Y.W.C.A. in June 1952, about fifty strong by the autumn — eleven Weston Trophies, and the last branch of the first generation to close.
Read →The London Branch, 1950–1989
Founded on Dorinda Street in the summer of 1950, before the Society had branches — a guild that examined its own members, taught London's night schools, won the first Weston Trophy ever awarded, and ended in one line of an Editor's report.
Read →The Belleville Branch, 1965–1985
Leatherworkers active since 1958 who joined the Society in 1965, hosted its Annual Meeting twice, and gave up their charter alongside Barrie in 1985.
Read →The Norland Branch, from 1978
Twelve members in a home workshop near Norland, Ontario, welcomed as a branch in 1979 and still meeting.
Read →The Mississauga Branch, from 1984
Welcomed as the seventh branch in 1984; hosted the Society's Annual within three years and won the Weston Trophy on its first year of entry.
Read →The Petrolia Branch, 1957
A branch application announced in the newsletter in 1957, and named twice more in the Society's own history — everything the surviving record holds of it.
Read →The Windsor Branch, 1977–1980
Formed over the winter of 1977–78 and ratified at the 1978 Annual Meeting as Leather Artists International of Windsor — the last mention found is 1980.
Read →The Peterboro Branch, 1956–1958
Organized 17 October 1956 at the YWCA with 65 present and a full slate of officers; reported an active year in 1958, and was still named among the branches in Muma’s 1960 history.
Read →The Tillsonburg Branch, 1957–by 1968
A high-school leathercraft class that became a branch in 1957, entered the Weston Trophy twice, in 1957 and 1958, and had dissolved by the time Woodstock's branch formed in 1968.
Read →