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Welcome to ULITA

The University of Leeds International Textiles Archive (ULITA) is housed in St Wilfred’s Chapel on the Western Campus of the University of Leeds. The purpose of the archive is to collect, preserve and document textiles and other related items from many of the textile producing areas of the world for the benefit of scholars, researchers and the general public.

Research and publication are an important focus. Components of several of the constituent collections were assembled and used as teaching resources in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries by Professors John and Roberts Beaumont, as well as Professor Aldred Barker, all key innovators in developments in textile education. These collections were supplemented by large quantities of material collected, acquired and rescued by the current Director, Professor Michael Hann, in the 1980s and 1990s.

Each year we welcome a few well-established senior scholars as International Visiting Fellows, on sabbatical leave, wishing to collaborate and participate in researching our constituent textile collections.

Since opening at St Wilfred’s Chapel in 2004, ULITA’s activities have been generously sponsored by The Heritage Lottery Fund, The Clothworkers’ Company, The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), The Pasold Research Fund, The Wolfson Foundation, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Renaissance Yorkshire, The Textile Society, The Egyptian Exploration Society and various other grant awarding bodies.