About the TCCF
The Textile Conservation Centre Foundation's Trustees from 28th September 2011 are:
- Lady Shaw-Stewart, Chairman
- Steve Kennett, Hon. Treasurer
- Liz Arthur
- Dr Mary Brooks
- Paul Gismondi
- Lady Smith of Kelvin
- Kirsten Suenson-Taylor
From 1975 the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC) was based at Hampton Court Palace. It uniquely combined three activities: textile conservation education, research and practice. Whilst it was at Hampton Court Palace, the TCC was academically affiliated to the Courtauld Insitute of Art, which validated the Centre's Postgraduate Diploma in Textile Conservation. In addition to this course the TCC also offered apprenticeships in tapestry and upholstery, in addition to welcoming interns and visiting scholars from around the world. The TCC Foundation's Trustees steered the TCC through many challenges during these years.
In the mid 1990s the Trustees reviewed the future of the Centre and concluded that the development of the TCC's work could best be achieved as part of a university and in modern, ideally purpose-designed, premises. The merger with the University of Southampton was negotiated by the Trust and it also oversaw a major capital campaign to raise funds to support the move. After the merger the trust was re-named the TCC Foundation and it continued to support the work of the TCC, in particular its fundraising activities.
From 1999 to 2009 the TCC enjoyed ten astoundingly successful years - which included training a more than 80 textile conservators and well over 100 curators on its MA courses in Textile Conservation and Museums & Galleries. Nearly a dozen MPhil/PhD students also successfully graduated in this time. The Centre's securing of a prestigious AHRC Research Centres grant enabled it considerably to increase its research, as well as the academic and public dissemination of the results of that work.
The Trustees deplored the decision to close the TCC. The Foundation's Trustees (led until February 10th, 2011 by The Marquess of Douro) considered a number of options and decided that Glasgow University offered by far the best home for textile conservation education and research in the UK. The new Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History is not the "TCC mark 3" but an exciting new development which both continues but significantly extends the work of the old TCC. It also brings university level conservation education to Scotland for the first time.
Users of this website might also be interested in the Foundation's efforts to raise awareness to wider challenges facing conservation and conservation education. The TCCF commissioned research from Demos which was published as 'It's a Material World: caring for the public realm' in 2009.
