Museums - University of Leeds International Textiles Archive

The UTILA textile collections began in the nineteenth century with the teaching materials of John and Roberts Beaumont, the first Professors in the Department of Textile Industries of the Yorkshire College, which later became the University of Leeds. In 1892, the Clothworkers Company made possible the provision of a museum for the collection, which by that time had grown greatly in size and importance. Later the collection was moved to St. Wilfred's Chapel on the campus of the university, where it resides today. The chapel was designed by Edward Barry and was built in 1862–1863 by the Leeds Grammar School, and today contains a specially designed conservation ark to house the fragile collection, complete with display space.
The permanent collection at ULITA comprises Qing dynasty silk embroideries and woven tapestries, South Asian shawls, Mediterranean and Near East embroideries, printed and patterned cottons from Pakistan, and more. Particularly notable is the Archive's Indonesian Collection, which contains a vast number of highly decorative batik fabrics principally from Java.