Article of the Week - number fifty-one - David Whitehead fabric

David Whitehead started in 1815 when three brothers, David, Peter and Thomas Whitehead, decided to begin production in the Rossendale Valley. David Whitehead Ltd was started in 1927 as a subsidiary of the Whitehead Group. 

This piece is one of a few that are in the collection in the studio, and was made by David Whitehead Ltd. It is called Campanile and was designed by Jane Daniels in 1960. At the time David Whitehead was devoted to producing good affordable design in fabrics, and many artists worked with the company to create these designs. You can see more of them here(including this one) and read more about the history of the company too. David Whitehead fabrics were also produced in what was then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the 1950s when equipment was sent over to the former British colony. That arm of the business is now operating again and, after a hiatus, nowadays the business is producing these designs once more in the UK.