Traits and Traces: A Leach Family Legacy with Shelley Lockwood

Wed 30 April

David Parr House

Based in City Road Cambridge, Frederick R.Leach ran an important decorative arts company during the heyday of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This talk explores the life and impact of Leach, who was David Parr's employer and looks at the creative legacy of the Leach family, looking at some of the marks they made in Cambridge and beyond over four generations.

Shelley Lockwood was a key member of the team that first developed the David Parr House, and author of Frederick Leach: A Cambridge Artworkman and His Firm published by Casita Press for David Parr House.

This talk is presented in honour of Ric Leach (1937–2025), craftsman and great-grandson of Victorian master artworkman F.R. Leach.

Dr Shelley Lockwood is a local and oral historian. She has lived and worked in Cambridge for over 30 years. Her work in local history includes managing the successful transfer and expansion of the Capturing Cambridge project (www.capturingcambridge.org) from Mill Road to the Museum of Cambridge and many aspects of the Life and Art in a Worker's House project which saw the conserving and opening to the public of David Parr House in 2019. In 2022, the Cambridgeshire Association for Local History recognised her book about Frederick Leach as an outstanding contribution to local history.

Cost: £10 (£12 with donation)