Henry Poole & Co has the most complete record of bespoke tailoring archives in Britain if not the world.
The jewel of the Poole’s Archive is a set of customer order ledgers dating from 1846 to the 1950s recorded in over 120 monolithic books each containing over 1000 pages. What makes these ledgers unique on the Row is the detail with which orders, addresses, recommendations and special requirements are logged and updated. This means Henry Poole & Co can identify and date garments that survive either physically or in paintings and sculptures that are definitively tailored by the firm.
When Poole’s first engaged curator James Sherwood to catalogue the archive, the customer ledger books were in peril from water damage, age and red dust emanating from disintegrating original leather bindings. It was Chairman Angus Cundey and Managing Director Simon Cundey’s decision to invest in a complete restoration and rebinding of every ledger – directed by Clerkenwell’s Wyvern Bindery – that would ensure the collection was preserved for future generations. It took James five years to study the ledgers page-by-page and create a catalogue of celebrated customers dressed by Poole’s. The catalogue included over 2000 men and women who contributed significantly to world history.
In addition to the ledgers, Poole’s successive chairmen had the foresight to preserve over 100 books relating to the private workings of the family business as well as tin trunks of personal correspondence, property deeds, court reports, diaries, address books and accounts the earliest of which dates back to the 1830s when Henry’s father James was head of the house. These records tell the story of Henry Poole & Co as a family firm that was often in under siege but always found a way to remain solvent and independent. The Archive also includes illustrated books that demonstrate the breadth of the company’s work including 19th century fancy dress costume, jockey silks, illustrations of ladies’ tailoring and fabric, button and braid samples relating to liveries of every reign from King Edward VII to his great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II.
Poole’s is committed to building the company archive and making it more accessible to academics and customers whose families have patronised Poole’s for generations. The indexes for the customer ledgers have been digitized and the collection of historic garments is constantly being augmented under the direction of Director Keith Levett. Research for a house biography of Henry Poole & Co has taken James and Keith to the Churchill archive at Chartwell, the Museum of London and the Victoria & Albert Museum to hunt down surviving garments with great provenance.
