Interested in tools? This site is for you. Established in 1983 as a Charity, our aim is to advance the education of the general public in the history and development of hand tools and their use and of the people and trades that use them. But what does that actually mean?

This site is not just for collectors, or historians, but also the curious, with members worldwide. This covers any activity or craft where tools are used - book binding, leather work, sail making, boat building, cabinet making, printing, animal husbandry, metal working, wheelwrights, cider making, glove making, the list is endless, and how these implements have evolved over centuries.

This site is for researchers into social history but it is also for the young to explore something they picked up at the local car boot sale, or found in a skip, to encourage an interest and perhaps a craft.

This site is also for craftsmen and women to learn how different tools were used and to what effect, and for discussion, for mutual learning and exchange of information. There are social events and volunteering opportunities with like-minded and interested people and expert advice.

Explore further! If this is your first visit, the New Visitors page explains more about our activities. 

Joining TATHS makes sense, whatever your level of interest. You will be able find like minded enthusiasts and share your interests with them at local or national events and through our publications.

 Membership Terms & Conditions are set out in our constitution here

The Tools and Trades History Society is an educational charity, whose aim is to further the knowledge and understanding of hand tools and the trades in which they were used.

Joining TATHS makes sense whatever your level of interest as you will be able find like minded enthusiasts and share your interests with them at local or national events and through our publications. The reports of future and past events show the range of our activities; our online shop shows the range of our publications including our newsletter, journal, original books and reprints.

We are not primarily a collectors' club but most of our members do own quite a lot of tools and some of them have studied their specialist interests in depth.

The society owns a substantial collection of tools, which is on permanent public display at the Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre, near Arundel in West Sussex. All members are urged to visit Amberley as often as they can. We also have close links to the Hawley Collection in Sheffield.

The Society also holds a collection of more than a thousand books (including many that are now out of print) and old tool catalogues which is held at the Museum of Rural Life in Reading. It is available for research by both members and non-members.

Membership is open to all and we have members from around the world.  You can join on-line or by post. 

 

Tools & Trades History Society

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Welcome to the
Tools & Trades History Society website

Interested in tools? This site is for you.

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Tim Miller would welcome advice on this distinctive tool.  

As well as being a national organisation, TATHS also has a thriving network of regional groups. These groups organise their own meetings locally three or four times a year and are a good way of getting to know other members in your area. 

If you would like to join your local group, or be informed of forthcoming meetings, just send an email to secretary@taths.org.uk who will be delighted to hear from you.

The Salaman Awards were established in memory of Raphael A. Salaman (1906-1993), a distinguished historian of tools and trades. He always liked to consider tools within the context of their use and he took particular interest in the lives and working conditions of the tradesmen who used them. He was the author of two indispensable reference books, the Dictionary of Woodworking Tools and the Dictionary of Leather-Working Tools. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and he was a founding Vice-President of TATHS.

The Salaman family generously added to the funds available in 2015, securing the long term future of the awards.

Funds are available to a limit, in any one calendar year, of £2000* in the form of Grants towards the cost of research projects proposed to be undertaken and/or Awards for research work already completed. *However, it would be very exceptional for the entire sum to be granted/awarded to a single project or piece of research.

Applications will be considered from any person or group, whether members of the Tools and Trades History Society or not.

Proposed projects and completed work submitted for consideration will be assessed by the Executive Trustees regarding:

• Originality of the work and the extent to which it advances the Society's objective.
  Suitability for publication, either as written material or as a visual/aural record, under the auspices of the Society, or elsewhere with the acknowledgement of the Society's assistance.

Persons or Groups wishing to apply for Grants or Awards should download an Application Form and submit this when completed, together with any synopsis or particulars requested, for consideration by the Trustees especially charged with assessment of that and any other applications received.

Potential Applicants should be aware that submissions received in the early part of the year will be more likely of success in getting a Grant/Award that year, than those which arrive later, when other budgetary processes may have imposed funding constraints.
Final decisions about Grants/Awards in any one year will be made by the Executive Committee of Trustees. 

Anyone who would like to add to the award fund should get in touch with our Chairman who will be pleased to discuss any proposals.

London ;

• Geffrye Museum
• London Canal Museum
• London Museum of Water & Steam
• Museum of London
• Museum of London Docklands
• The Brooking Collection
• The Kirkaldy Testing Museum
• The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers' Museum
• Wimbledon Windmill Museum

Southeast England ;

• Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre, Arundel
• Buckler's Hard maritime museum
• Combe Mill, Blenheim
• Guildhall Museum, Rochester
• Much Hadham Forge Museum
• Museum of English Rural Life, Reading
• Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
• Pitstone Green Museum of Rural Life
• Rural Life Centre, Farnham
• The Historic Dockyard, Chatham
• Weald & Downland Open Air Museum

Southwest England ;

• Bishops Lydeard Mill, Taunton
• Finch Foundry, Sticklepath
• Geevor Tin Mine, Pendeen
• Gloucester Folk Museum
• King Edward Mine Museum, Camborne
• Kingswood Heritage Museum
• M Shed, Bristol
• Morwellham Quay, Tavistock
• Museum of Bath Architecture
• Museum of Bath at Work
• Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
• Radstock Museum
• Somerset Brick and Tile Museum
• Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury
• Steam Museum, Swindon
• The Mary Rose
• The Saltford Brass Mill Project
• Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life
• Underfall Yard
• Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum, St Austell
• Willow & Wetlands Centre, Stoke St Gregory

Midlands ;

• Avoncroft Museum, Bromsgrove
• Black Country Living Museum
• Claymills Victorian Pumping Station, Burton upon Trent
• Forge Mill Needle Museum, Redditch
• Ironbridge Gorge Museums, Coalbrookdale
• Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham
• National Brewery Centre, Burton upon Trent
• Pen Museum, Birmingham
• The Coffin Works, Birmingham

East Anglia ;

• Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse
• Museum of East Anglian Social Life, Stowmarket
• Museum of Lincolnshire Life, Lincoln
• The Museum of Knots and Sailors' Ropework, Ipswich

Northeast England ;

• Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet
• Beamish Open Air Museum, Northumberland
• Grassington Folk Museum, Wharfedale
• Jorvik Viking Centre, York
• Kelham Island Museum
• National Railway Museum, York
• North of England Lead Mining Museum, Killhope
• Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds
• Ryedale Folk Museum
• Shepherd Wheel Workshop, Sheffield
• The Hawley Collection
• Wortley Top Forge, Sheffield

Northwest England ;

• Anderton Boat Lift, Northwich
• Quarry Bank Mill, Styal
• Stott Park Bobbin Mill, Ulverston
• Windermere Steamboat Museum

Scotland ;

• Easdale Island Folk Museum
• Fordyce Joiner's Workshop and Visitor Centre, Aberdeen
• National Museum of Rural Life, East Kilbride
• Skye Museum of Island Life

Wales ;

• Big Pit National Coal Museum
• Cefn Coed Colliery Museum
• Kidwelly Industrial Museum
• National Slate Museum
• National Wool Museum
• St Fagans National History Museum

Northern Ireland ;

• Gray's Printing Press
• Patterson's Spade Mill
• Wellbrook Beetling Mill

Europe ;

• Ambacht & Gereedschap
• International Plumb Bob Collectors Association
• Les Amis de l'Outil
• Rubankov Museum, Moscow

North America ;

• Early American Industries Association
• Mid West Tool Collectors Association
• Oughtred Society
• Society of American Period Furniture Makers
• Society of Industrial Archeology
• The International Molinological Society
• Tool Group of Canada

 Japan

 Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum   Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum, Kyoto

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