Photography: Celia Johnstone © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved
My name is Katrina Trewin and I am currently completing a placement in the Museum’s Archives. The professional placement forms part of my Master of Information Studies degree at Charles Sturt University, which I am undertaking via Distance Education thanks to the magic of online subject delivery!
During my time here at the Powerhouse Archives, I have been working on arranging and describing the archive of Enoch Taylor & Co., a shoe manufacturing company which has operated in Sydney from 1851 through to the present day. The Museum Archives acquired this collection in 2009, together with several shoes produced by Enoch Taylor & Co, during the company’s peak in the 1940s-1950s. The archive complements the collection of shoes and serves as an important historical resource for shoe manufacture and shoe import in Australia, as well as reflecting the changes in social custom and fashion through the decades.
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
My favourite items in the archive are the promotional catalogues, which showcase various shoe designs. The catalogues are undated, but from the illustrations and typography it appears they were produced in the 1930s or 1940s. Other interesting items in the archive include press copy letter books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, through to 1925. I have never come across letter books before and was interested to learn that this is how copies were made prior to the use of carbon paper. There are letters about the day to day operation of the company, and every so often a reference to the impact of World War I on shipping and labour.
As it turns out, the museum’s relationship with Enoch Taylor & Co. began long before the acquisition of this collection. In the Institutional archives, Archives Manager Helen Yoxall discovered a letter from the company to the Museum, dated 1891. The letter seeks the museum’s advice about an insect that was attacking shoes at the Enoch Taylor & Co. warehouse. The Museum’s entomologist, Walter Froggatt, identified the beetle and made recommendations for its eradication. The Museum subsequently published Froggatt’s work in 1892, no doubt sealing the fate of all the beetles munching on leather shoes throughout Sydney at the time!
Thankyou to everyone in the Museum’s Registration department, especially Helen Yoxall, for making me welcome. It’s been a valuable learning experience and great to see behind the scenes of museum collection management.
Katrina Trewin, Archives Intern
Editor’s comment: Also in the Enoch Taylor collection and archive is, what we believe to be, a shoe gauge (for measuring the thickness of boots made for the army). However, we aren’t certain of this and would like to know more. If you think you might be able to help, please click here.
