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.
The Woodstock Branch, 1968–2010
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, 1955–1989
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, 1978–2025
Twelve members in a home workshop near Norland, Ontario, welcomed as a branch in 1979 and still meeting.
Read →The Mississauga Branch, 1984–2025
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, 1957–1960s
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 →