28 new training bursaries on offer from Heritage Crafts

Funders and sponsors are helping Heritage Crafts to make its biggest contribution to early-career craft training since the charity was founded in 2010, with over £100k worth of training bursaries launching today.

Co-Chaired by Jay Blades MBE and David Clarke, and with the former Prince of Wales as its President, Heritage Crafts is committed to increasing access to heritage craft skills for those least able to afford the cost of training, including those from marginalised communities up and down the UK.

The charity, which in February was awarded funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to boost its ongoing sustainability and reach out to a broader audience, has been steadily growing its support offering, with the number of available bursaries doubling every year for the past three years. Already in 2024 it has awarded eight such bursaries, supported by The Royal Mint, the Costume Society, the Golsoncott Foundation and Jennifer Chen.

The new bursaries are intended for talented new entrants and early-career practitioners, who might otherwise be lost to the heritage crafts sector as a result of not being able to afford hands-on craft training at a key moment in their early career. Of the 28 bursaries on offer:

• 11 will be generally available to trainees facing financial hardship, which may be exacerbated by other barriers they are facing, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Newby Trust, Anthony and Elizabeth Mellows Charitable Settlement, Kendrick Hobbs and Malcolm Gammie.
• 2 will be allocated to Black and ethnically-diverse trainees, who remain under-represented in the sector, supported by the City & Guilds Foundation.
• 6 will be allocated to veterans of the British Armed Services, supported by the Army Benevolent Fund and the Royal British Legion.
• 3 will be allocated to trainees in Scotland, supported by the William Grant Foundation.
• 2 will be allocated to trainees in Wales, supported by the Ashley Family Foundation.
• 1 will be allocated to trainees in Sussex, supported by the Sussex Heritage Trust.
• 1 will be allocated to decorative crafts, supported by the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars.
• 1 will be allocated to rural crafts, supported by the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust.
• 1 will be allocated to an endangered craft featured on the Red List of Endangered Crafts, supported by Soane Britain.

Applicants are invited to apply once using a single application form, and will automatically be considered for the general funding pot as well as all of the categories that apply to them. Click here to find out more and to access the application form. The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 2 August 2024.

The value placed on these skills by the UK public is on the rise, with sustained media attention on Heritage Crafts’ Red List of Endangered Crafts, and recent news that the UK is finally ratifying the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which seeks to create parity of esteem for the nation’s knowledge, skills and practices alongside that of its historical buildings and objects. However, the support offered by Heritage Crafts is only a tiny fraction of the funding required to pass the nation’s skills on to the next generation, so the charity continues to campaign for greater investment in crafts that provide both cultural and economic value as part of a thriving mixed economy.